Your mind and how to use it : a manual of practical psychology

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YOUR MIND

AND HOW TG USE IT

A MANUAL OF PRACTICAL
PSYCHOLOGY

BY

WILLIAM WALKER ATKINSON

It is not enough merely to have a sound mind —
one must also learn how to use it, if he would
become mentally efficient.

PUBLISHED BY

THE ELIZABETH TOWNE CO.,

HOLYOKE. MASS.

L. N. Fowler & Co., London.

Copyright, 1911.
ELIZABETH TOWNE.

Copyrighted in the United States and England.

Contents.

Chapter

Page

I.

What is the Mind 5

11.

The Mechanism of Mental States

11

III.

The Great Nerve Centers

17

IV.

Consciousness

24

V.

Attention .

29

VI.

Perception .

36

VII.

Memory.

45

VIII.

Memory (continued)

54

IX.

Imagination .

62

X.

The Feelings

72

XL

The Emotions

79

XII.

The Instinctive Emotions

. 88

XIII.

The Passions .

96

XIV.

The Social Emotions

. 104

XV.

The Religious Emotions .

. Ill

XVI.

The Esthetic Emotions .

. 117

XVII.

Thr Intellectual Emotions

. 125

XVIII.

The Role of the Emotions

. 131

XIX.

The Emotions and Happiness .

«

. 136

XX.

The Intellect .

» 143

XXL

Conception ....

. 151

XXII.

Classes of Concepts .

, 158

XXIII.

Judgments ....

. 164

^XXIV.

Primary Laws of Thought

. 171

r XXV.

Reasoning

, 176

XXVI.

Inductive Reasoning .

, 181

XXVII.

Deductive Reasoning \ .

. 186

xxvm.

Fallacious Reasoning * .

> 193

XXIX.

The Will . . . .

. 201

XXX.

Will-Training . . .

. 213

XXXI.

Will-Tonic .

• 4

, 219

CHAPTER I.

What is the Mind ?

PSYCHOLOGY is generally considered to be the
science of mind, although more properly it is
the science of mental states — thoughts, feel-
ings, and acts of volition. It was formerly the custom
of writers on the subject of psychology to begin by an
attempt to define and describe the nature of mind,
before proceeding to a consideration of the subject of
the various mental states and activities. But more
recent authorities have rebelled against this demand,
and have claimed that it is no more reasonable to hold
that psychology should be held to an explanation of the
ultimate nature of mind than it is that physical science
be held to an explanation of the ultimate nature of
matter. The attempt to explain the ultimate nature of
either is futile — no actual necessity exists for explana-
tion in either case. Physics may explain the phenom-
ena of matter, and psychology the phenomena of mind,
without regard to the ultimate nature of the substance
of either.

The science of physics has progressed steadily during
the. past century, notwithstanding the fact that the

6 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

theories regarding the ultimate nature of matter have
been revolutionized during that period. The facts of
the phenomena of matter remain, notwithstanding the
change of theory regarding the nature of matter itself.
Science demands and holds fast to facts, regarding
theories as but working hypotheses at the best. Some
one has said that ^'theories are but the bubbles with
which the grown-up children of science amuse them-
selves/^ Science holds several well-supported, though
opposing, theories regarding the nature of electricity,
but the facts of the phenomena of electricity, and the
application thereof, are agreed upon by the disputing
theorists. And so it is with psychology; the facts re-
garding mental states are agreed upon, and methods of
developing mental powers are effectively employed,
without regard to whether mind is a product of the
brain, or the brain merely an organ of the mind. The
fact that the brain and nervous system are employed
in the phenomena of thought is conceded by all, and
that is all that is necessary for a basis for the science of
psychology.

Disputes regarding the ultimate nature of mind are
now generally passed over to the philosophers and meta-
physicians, while psychology devotes its entire attention
to studying the laws of mental activities, and to dis-
covering methods of mental development. Even phi-

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 7

losophy is beginning to tire of the eternal *^Svhy" and
is devoting its attention to the ^^how'^ phase of things.
The pragmatic spirit has invaded the field of philos-
ophy, expressing itself in the words of Prof. William
James, who said: ^Tragmatism is the attitude of
looking away from first things, principles, categories,
supposed necessities; and of looking forward toward
last things, fruits, consequences, facts/' Modern psy-
chology is essentially pragmatic in its treatment of the
subject of the mind. Leaving to metaphysics the old
arguments and disputes regarding the ultimate nature
of mind, it bends all its energies upon discovering the
laws of mental activities and states, and developing
methods whereby the mind may be trained to perform
better and more work, to conserve its energies, to con-
centrate its forces. To modern psychology the mind is
something to be used, not merely something about
which to speculate and theorize. While the metaphy-
sicians deplore this tendency, the practical people of
the world rejoice.

Mind Defined.

Mind is defined as "the faculty or power whereby
thinking creatures feel, think, and will.'' This defini-
tiojci -is inadequate and circular in nature, but this is
unavoidable, for mind can be defined only in its own

8 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

terms and only by reference io. its own processes. Mind,
except in reference to its own activities, cannot be de-
fined or conceived. It is known to itself only through
its activities. Mind without mental states is a mere
abstraction — a word without a corresponding mental
image or concept. Sir William Hamilton expressed
the matter as clearly as possible, when he said : "What
we mean by mind is simply that which perceives, thinks,
feels, wjllS;, a,iid_desires^^^ Without the perceiving,
thinking, feeling, willing, and desiring, it is impos-
sible to form a clear conception or mental image of
mind; deprived of its phenomena it becomes the merest
abstraction.

^Think About That Which Thinks.^'

Perhaps the simplest method of conveying the idea
of the existence and nature of the mind is that attrib-
uted to a celebrated German teacher of psychology who
was wont to begin his course by bidding his students
think of something, his desk, for example. Then he
would say, "Now think of that which thinks about the
desk/' Then, after a pause, he would add, "This thing
which thinks about the desk, and about which you are
now thinking, is the subject matter of our study of
psychology.^^ The professor could not have said more
had he lectured for a month.

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 9

Professor Gordy has well said on this point: "The
mind must either be that tvhich thinks, feels, and wills,
or it must be the thoughts, feelings, and acts of will
of which we are conscious — mental facts, in one word.
But what can we know about that which thinks, feels,
and wills, and what can we find out about it? Where
is it? You will probably say, in the brain. But, if
you are speaking literally, if you say that it is in the
brain, as a pencil is in the pocket, then you must mean
that it takes up room, that it occupies space, and that
would make it very much like a material thing. In
truth, the more carefully you consider it, the more
plainly you will see what thinking men have known
for a long time — that we do not know and cannot learn
anything about the thing which thinks, and feels, and
wills. It is beyond the range of human knowledge.
The 'books which define psychology as the science of
mind have not a word to say about that which thinks,
and feels, and wills. They are entirely taken up with
these thoughts and feelings and acts of the v/ill, —
mental facts, in a word, — trying to tell us what they
are, and to arrange them in classes, and tell us the cir-
cumstances or conditions under which they exist. It
seems to me that it would be better to define psychology
as the science of the experiences, phenomena, or facts of
the mind, soul, or self — of mental facts, in a word/'

10 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT,

In view of the facts of the case, and following the
example of the best of the modern authorities, in this
book we shall leave the consideration of the question
of the ultimate nature of mind to the metaphysicians,
and shall confine ourselves to the mental facts, the laws
governing them, and the best methods of governing
and using them in ^^the business of life/^

The classification and method of development to be
followed in this book is as follows : —

I. The mechanism of mental states, i. e,, the brain,
nervous system, sense organs, etc.

II. The fact of Consciousness and its planes.

III. Mental processes or faculties, i. e., (1) Sensa-
tion and Perception; (2) Representation, or Imagina-
tion and Memory; (3) Feeling or Emotion; (4)
Intellect, or Reason and Understanding; (5) Will or
Volition.

Mental states depend upon the physical mechanism
for manifestation, whatever may be the ultimate nature
of mind. Mental states, whatever their special char-
acter, will be found to fit into one of the above five
general classes of mental activities.

CHAPTEK II

The Mechanism of Mental States.

THE mechanism of mental states — the mental
machinery by means of which we feel, think,
and will — consists of the brain, nervous system,
and the 'organs of sense. No matter what may be the
real nature of mind, — ^no matter what may be the
theory held regarding its activities, — it must be ad-
mitted that the mind is dependent upon this mechanism
for the manifestation of what we know as mental states.
Wonderful as is the mind, it is seen to be dependent
upon this physical mechanism for the expression of its
activities. And this dependence is not upon the brain
alone, but also upon the entire nervous system.

The best authorities agree that the higher and more
complex mental states are but an evolution of simple
sensation, and that they are dependent upon sensation
for their raw material of feeling and thought. There-
fore it is proper that we begin by a consideration of the
machinery of sensation. This necessitates a previous
consideration of the nerves.

The Nerves.

The body is traversed by an intricate system of

12 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

nerves, which has been likened to a great telegraph
system. The nerves transmit sensations from the vari-
ous parts of thF^dy to the great receiving office of
the brain. They also ser^e to transmit the motor im-
pulses from the brain to 4lhii^arious parts of the body,
which impulses result in motion of appropriate parts
of the body. There are also other nerves with which
we have no concern in this book, but which perform
certain physiological functions, such as digestion, secre-
tion, excretion, and circulation. Our chief concern, at
this point, is with the sensory nerves.

The sensory nerves convey the impressions of the
outside world to the brain. The brain is the great cen-
tral station of the sensory nerves, the latter having
countless sending stations in all parts of the body, the
"wires'^ terminating in the skin. When these nervous
terminal stations are irritated or excited, they send to
the brain messages calling for attention. This is true
not only of the nerves of touch or feeling, but also of
those concerned with the respective senses of sight,
smell, taste, and hearing. In fact, the best authorities
hold that all the five senses are but an evolution of the
primary sense of touch or feeling.

The Sense of Touch.
The nerves of the sense of touch have their ending

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 13

in the outer covering or skin of the body. They report
contact with other physical objects. By means of these
reports we are aware not only of coj^t with the out-
side object^ but also of maliy facts concerning the
nature of that object;, a^f^r instance^ its degree of
hardness, roughness, etc., an^ its temperature. Some
of these nerve ends are very sensitive, as, for example,
those of the tip of the tongue and finger ends, while
others are comparatively lacking in sensitiveness, as,
for illustration, those of the back. Certain of these sen-
sory nerves confine themselves to reporting contact and
degrees of pressure, while others concern themselves
solely with reporting the degrees of temperature of the
objects with which their ends come in contact. Some
of the latter respond to the higher degrees of heat,
while others respond only to the lower degrees of cold.
The nerves of certain parts of the body respond more
readily and distinctly to temperature than do those of
other parts. To illustrate, the nerves of the cheek are
quite responsive to heat impressions.

The Sense of Sight.

The nerves of the sense of sight terminate in the
complex optical apparatus which in popular terminol-
ogy is known as ''the eye.'' What is known as ''the
retina'' is a very sensitive nervous membrane which

14 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

lines the inner, back part of the eye, and in which the
fibers of the optic nerve terminate. The optical instru-
ment of the eye conveys the focused light vibrations to
the nerves of the retina, from which the impulse is
transmitted to the brain. . But, contrary to the popular
notion, the nerves of the eye do not gauge distances, nor
form inferences of any kind; that is distinctly the work
of the mind. The simple office of the optical nerves
consists in reporting color and degrees of intensity of
the light waves.

The Sense of Hearing.

The nerves of the sense of hearing terminate in the
inner part of the ear. The tympanum, or ^^ear drum,''
receives the sound vibrations entering the cavities of the
ear, and, intensifying and adapting them, it passes them
on to the ends of the auditory nerve in the internal
ear, which conveys the sensation to the brain. The
auditory nerve reports to the brain the degrees of pitch,
intensity, quality, and harmony, respectively, of the
sound waves reaching the tympanum. As is well known,
there are certain vibrations of sound which are too low
for the auditory nerve to register, and others too high
for it to record, both classes, however, capable of
being recorded by scientific instruments. It is also
regarded as certain that some of the lower animals are

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 15

conscious of sound vibrations which are not registered
by the human auditory nerves.

The Sense of Smell.

The nerves of the sense of smell terminate in the
mucous membrane of the nostrils. In order that these
nerves report the odor of outside objects^ actual contact
of minute particles of the object with the mucous mem-
brane of the nostrils is necessary. This is possible only
by the passage through the nostrils of air containing
these particles; mere nearness to the nostril will not
suffice. These particles are for the most part composed
of tenuous gases. Certain substances affect the olfac-
tory nerves much more than do others, the difference
arising from the chemical composition of the substance.
The olfactory nerves convey the report to the brain.

The Sense of Taste.

The nerves of the sense of taste terminate in the
tongue, or rather in the tiny cells of the tongue which
are called ^^taste buds.^' Substances taken into the
mouth chemically affect these tiny cells, and an impulse
is transmitted to the gustatory nerves, which then re-
port the sensation to the brain. The authorities claim
that taste sensations may be reduced to five general
classes, viz.: sweet, bitter, sour, salty, and "hot."

16 YOUB MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

There are certain nerve centers having important
offices in the production and expression of mental states,
located in the skull and in the spinal column — the
brain and the spinal cord — which we shall consider in
the following chapter.

CHAPTER III.

The Great Nerve Centers.

THE great nerve centers which play an important
part in the production and expression of men-
tal states are those of the brain and spinal
cord, respectively.

The Spinal Cord.

The spinal cord is that cord or rope of nerve sub-
stance which is inclosed in the spinal column or "back-
bone/^ It leaves the lower part of the skull and extends
downward in the interior of the spinal column for
about eighteen inches. It is continuous with the brain,
however, and it is difficult to determine where one begins
and the other ends. It is composed of a mass of gray
matter surrounded by a covering of white matter. From
the spinal cord, along its length, emerge thirty-one
pairs of spinal nerves which branch out to each side of
the body and connect with the various smaller nerves,
extending to all parts of the system. The spinal
cord is the great central cable of the nervous tele-
graphic system, and any injury to or obstruction of it
cripples or paralyzes those portions of the body the

18 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

nerves of which enter the spinal cord below the seat of
the injury or obstruction. Injuries or obstructions of
this kind not only inhibit the sensory reports from the
aifected area^ but also inhibit the motor impulses from
the brain which are intended to move the limbs or
parts of the body.

The Ganglia or ^Tiny Brains/^

What are known as ganglia, or tiny bunches of nerve
cells, are found in various parts of the nervous system,
including the spinal nerves. These groups of nerve
cells are sometimes called ^^little brains/' and perform
quite important offices in the mechanism of thought and
action. The spinal ganglia receive sensory reports, and
issue motor impulses, in many cases, without troubling
the central brain regarding the matter. These activi-
ties are known as "reflex nervous action.^'

Eeflex Action.

What is known as reflex nervous action is one of the
most wonderful of the activities of the nervous and
mental mechanism, and the knowledge thereof usually
comes as a surprise to the average person, for he is
generally under the impression that these activities
are possible only to the central brain. It is a fact that
not only is the central brain really a trinity of three

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 19

brains, but that, in addition to these, every one has a
great number of ^^little brains'' distributed over his
nervous system, any and all of which are capable of
receiving sensory reports and also of sending forth
motor impulses. It is quite worth while for one to
become acquainted with this wonderful form of neuro-
mental activity.

A cinder enters the eye, the report reaches a gan-
glion, a motor impulse is sent forth, and the eyelid
closes. The same result ensues if an object approaches
the eye but without actually entering it. In either
case the person is not conscious of the sensation and
motor impulse until the latter has been accomplished.
This is reflex action. The instinctive movement of the
tickled foot is another instance. The jerking away of
the hand burnt by the lighted end of the cigar, or
pricked by the point of the pin, is another instance.
The involuntary activities, and those known as uncon-
scious activities, result from reflex action.

More than this, it is a fact that many activities
originally voluntary become what is known as ^^ac-
quired reflexes,'' or ^^^motor habits," by means of certain
nervous centers acquiring the habit of sending forth
certain motor impulses in response to certain sensory
reports. The familiar movements of our lives are
largely performed in this way, as, for instance, walk-^

20 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

ing, using knife and fork, operating typewriters, ma-
chines of all kinds, writing, etc. The squirming of a
decapitated snake, the muscular movements of a de-
capitated frog, and the violent struggles, fluttering,
and leaps of the decapitated fowl, are instances of
reflex action. Medical reports indicate that in cases
of decapitation even man may manifest similar reflex
action in some cases. Thus we may see that we may
feel and will by means of our ^^little brains'^ as well
as by the central brain or brains. Whatever mind may
be, it is certain that in these processes it employs other
portions of the nervous system than the central brain.

The Three Brains.

What is known as the brain of man is really a trinity
of three brains, known respectively as (1) the medulla
oblongata, (2) the cerebellum, and (3) the cerebrum.
If one wishes to limit the mental activity to conscious
intellectual effort, then and then only is he correct in
considering the cerebrum or large brain as ^^the brain.^^

The Medulla Oblongata. — The medulla oblongata is
an enlargement of the spinal cord at the base of the
brain. Its office is that of controlling the involuntary
activities of the body, such as respiration, circulation,
assimilation, etc. In a broad sense, its activities may
be said to be of the nature of highly developed and com-

YOVB MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 21

plex reflex activities. It manifests chiefly through the
sympathetic nervous system which controls the vital
functions. It does not need to call on the large brain
in these matters, ordinarily, and is able to perform its
tasks without the plane of ordinary consciousness.

The Cerebellum, — The cerebellum, also known as
"the little brain/' lies just above the medulla oblon-
gata, and just below the rear portion of the cerebrum
or great brain. It combines the nature of a purely
reflex center on the one hand, with that of "habit
mind'' on the other. In short, it fills a place between
the activities of the cerebrum and the medulla oblon-
gata, having some of the characteristics of each. It is
the organ of a number of important acquired reflexes,
such as walking, and many other familiar muscular
movements, which have first been consciously acquired
and then become habitual. The skilled skater, bicy-
clist, typist, or machinist depends upon the cerebellum
for the ease and certainty with which he performs his
movements "without thinking of them." One may be
said never to have thoroughly acquired a set of mus-
cular movements such as we have mentioned, until the
cerebellum has taken over the task and relieved the
cerebrum of the conscious effort. One's technique is
never perfected until the cerebellum assumes control
and direction of the necessary movements and the im-

23 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

pulses are sent forth from below the plane of ordinary
consciousness.

The Cerebrum. — The cerebrum, or '^great brain'^
(which is regarded as ^^the brain^' by the average per-
son), is situated in the upper portion of the skull, and
occupies by far the larger portion of the cavity of the
skull. It is divided into two great divisions or hemi-
spheres. The best of the modern authorities are agreed
that the cerebrum has zones or areas of specialized
functioning, some of which receive the sensory reports
of the nerves and organs of sense, while others send
forth the motor impulses which result in voluntary
physical action. Many of these areas or zones have
been located by science, while others remain as yet
unlocated. The probability is that in time science will
succeed in correctly locating the area or zone of each
and every class of sensation and motor impulse.

The Cortex.

The area of thought, memory, and imagination has
not been clearly located, except that these mental states
are believed to have their seat in the cortex or outer
thin rind of* gray brain matter which envelopes and cov-
ers the mass of brain substance. It is, moreover, consid-
ered probable that the higher processes of reasoning are
performed in or by the cortex of the frontal lobes. The

YOVR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 23

cortex of a person of average intelligence, if spread out
on a flat surface, measures about four square feet. The
higher the degree of intelligence possessed by a lower
animal or human being, as a rule, the deeper and more
numerous are the folds or convolutions of the cortex,
and the finer its structure. It may be stated as a
general rule, with but very few exceptions, that the
higher the degree of intelligence in a lower animal or
human being, the greater is the area of its cortex in
proportion to the size of the brain. The cortex, it must
be remembered, is folded into deep furrows or con-
volutions, the brain in shape, divisions, and convolu-
tions resembling the inner portion of an English walnut.
The interior of the two hemispheres of the cerebrum
is composed largely of connective nerves which doubt-
less serve to produce and maintain the unity of func-
tion of the mental processes.

While physiological psychology has performed great
work in discovering brain-centers and explaining much
of the mechanism of mental processes, it has but
touched the most elementary and simple of the men-
tal processes. The higher processes have so far defied
analysis or explanation in the terms of physiology.

CHAPTER IV.

Consciousness.

THE fact of consciousness is the great mystery
of psychology. It is difficult even to define
the term, although every person of average in-
telligence understands what is sought to be conveyed
by it. Webster defines it as ^^knowledge of one^s own
existence, sensations, mental operations, etc. ; immediate
knowledge or perception of any object, state, or sensa-
tion; being aware; being sensible of/^ Another author-
ity defines the term as "the state of being aware of
one^s sensations; the power, faculty, or mental state of
being aware of one's own existence, condition at the
moment, thoughts, feelings, and actions/' Halleck's
definition is : "That indefinable characteristic of mental
states which causes us to be aware of them.''

It will be seen that the idea of "awareness" is the
essence of the idea of consciousness. But, at the last,
we are compelled to acknowledge that it is impossible
to closely define consciousness, for it is something so
entirely unique and different from anything else that
we have no other terms at all synonymous to it. We
can define it only in its own terms, as will be seen by

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 25

reference to the definitions above given. And it is
equally impossible to clearly account for its appearance
and being. Huxley has well said: "How it is that
anything so remarkable as a state of consciousness comes
about by the result of irritating nervous tissue, is just
as unaccountable as the appearance of the jinnee when
Aladdin rubbed his lamp.^^ All that we can ever know
regarding the nature of consciousness must be learned
from turning the consciousness in ourselves back upon
itself — by focusing consciousness upon its own mental
operations by means of introspection. By turning in-
ward the conscious gaze we may perceive the flow of
the stream of thought from its rise from the subcon-
scious regions of the mind to its final disappearance in
the same region.

It is a common error to suppose that we are directly
conscious of objects outside of ourselves. This is im-
possible, for there is no direct knowledge of such out-
side objects. We are conscious merely of our sensations
of, or mental images of, the outside objects. All that
it is possible for us to be directly conscious of are our
own mental experiences or states. We cannot be di-
rectly conscious of anything outside of our own minds.
We are not directly conscious of the tree which we see;
we are directly conscious merely of the sensation of the
nerves arising from the impact of the light waves car-

26 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

vying the image of the tree. We are not directly con-
scious of the tree when we touch it and perceive its
character in that way; we are directly conscious merely
of the sensation reported by the nerves in the finger
tips which have come in contact with the tree. We are
directly conscious even of our own bodies only in the
same way. It is necessary for the mind to experience
that of which it may become conscious. We are con-
scious only of (1) that which our mind is experiencing
at this moment, or (2) that which it has experienced
in the past, and which is being re-experienced this mo-
ment by the process of the memory, or which is being
re-combined or re-arranged this moment by the imag-
ination.

Subconscious Planes.

But it must not be thought that every mental state
or mental fact is in the field of consciousness. This
error has been exploded for many years. The fact is
now recognized that the field of consciousness is a very
narrow and limited one, and that the great field of
mental activity lies outside of its narrow limits. Be-
yond and outside of the narrow field of consciousness
lies the great subconscious storehouse of memory in
which are stored the experiences of the past, to be
drawn again into the field of consciousness by an effort
of the will in the act of recollection, or by association

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 27

in ordinary remembrance. In that great region, also,
the mind manifests many of its activities and performs
much of its work. In that great region are evolved
the emotions and feelings which play such an impor-
tant part in our lives, and which often manifest a vague
disturbing unrest long before they rise to the plane of
consciousness. In that great region are produced the
ideas, feelings, and conceptions which arise to the plane
of consciousness and manifest that which men call
^^genius.^^

On the subconscious plane the imagination does much
of its work, and startles its owner by presenting him
with the accomplished result in the field of conscious-
ness. In the subconscious field is performed that pe-
culiar process of mental mastication, digestion, and
assimilation with which all brain workers are familiar,
and which absorbs the raw mental material given it,
separates, digests, and assimilates it, and re-presents
it to the conscious faculties sometime after as a trans-
formed substance. It has been estimated that at least
eighty-five per cent, of our mental activities are per-
formed below or outside of the field of consciousness.
The psychology of to-day is paying much attention to
this formerly neglected great area or areas of the mind.
The psychology of to-morrow will pay still greater at-
tention to it.

28 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

The best of the modern authorities agree that in the
great field of subconscious mentation is to be found the
explanation of much that is unexplainable otherwise.
In fact, it is probable that before long consciousness
will be regarded as a mere focusing of attention upon
mental states, and the objects of consciousness merely
as that portion of the contents of the mind in the field
of mental vision created by such focusing.

^0463

CHAPTER V.
Attention.

INTIMATELY connected with the object of con-
sciousness is that process of the mind which we
call ^^attention/^ Attention is generally defined
as ^'the application of the mind to a mental state/^ It
is often referred to as ^^concentrated consciousness/'
but others have ventured the somewhat daring con-
jecture that consciousness itself is rather the result of
attention, instead of the latter being an incident of
consciousness. We shall not attempt to discuss this
question here, except to state that consciousness depends
very materially upon the degree of attention bestowed
upon its object. The authorities place great impor-
tance upon the intelligent direction of the attention,
and hold that without this the higher forms of knowl-
edge are impossible.

It is the common belief that we feel, see, hear, taste,
or smell whenever objects affecting those senses come
in contact with the organs of sense governing them.
But this is only a partial truth. The real truth is
that we become conscious of the report of these senses
only when the attention is directed toward the sensa-
tion, voluntarily or involuntarily. That is to say, that

30 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

in many cases although the sense nerves and organs
report a disturbance, the mind does not become con-
sciously aware of the report unless the attention is
directed toward it either by an act of will or else by
reflex action. For instance, the clock may strike loudly,
and yet we may not be conscious of the fact, for we are
concentrating our attention upon a book; or we may
eat the choicest food without tasting it, for we are
listening intently to the conversation of our charming
neighbor. We may fail to perceive some startling oc-
currence happening under our very eyes, for we are
buried in deep thought concerning something far re-
moved from the present scene. There are many cases
on record showing that one may be so interested in
speaking, thinking, or acting that he will not experi-
ence pain that would otherwise be intolerable. Writers
have forgotten their pain in the concentrated interest
bestowed upon their work; mothers have failed to feel
pain when their infants required urgent attention;
orators have been so carried away by their own elo-
quence that they have failed to feel the pricking of
the pin by means of which their friends have sought
to attract their attention. Not only perception and
feeling depend largely upon attention, but the proc-
esses of reasoning, memory, and even of will, depend
upon attention for much of their manifestation.

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 31

Psychologists divide attention into two general
classes, viz.: (1) voluntary attention and (2) involun-
tary attention.

Voluntary attention is attention directed by the will
to some object of our own more or less deliberate selec-
tion. It requires a distinct effort of the will in order
to focus the attention in this way, and many persons
are scarcely aware of its existence, so seldom do they
manifest it. Voluntary attention is the result of train-
ing and practice, and marks the man of strong will,
concentration, and character. Some authorities go so
far as to say that much of that which is commonly
called ^Vill power'^ is really but a developed form of
voluntary attention, the man of ^^strong will" holding
before him the one idea which he wishes to realize.

Involuntary attention, often called ^^reflex attention,"
is attention called forth by a nervous response to some
sense stimulus. This is the common form of attention,
and is but the same form which is so strongly mani-
fested by children whose attention is caught by every
new object, but which cannot be held for any length of
time by a familiar or uninteresting one.

It is of the utmost importance that one should cul-
tivate his power of voluntary attention. Not only is
the will power strengthened and developed in this way,
but every mental faculty is developed by reason thereof.

32 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

The training of the voluntary attention is the first step
in mental development.

Training the Attention.

That the voluntary attention may be deliberately
trained and developed is a fact which many of the
world^s greatest men have proved for themselves. There
is only one way to train and develop any mental power
of faculty — and that is hy practice and use. By prac-
tice, interest may be given to objects previously unin-
teresting, and thus the use of the attention develops
the interest which further holds it. Interest is the
natural road over which attention travels easily, but
interest itself may be induced by concentrated attention.
By studying and examining an object, the attention
brings to light many new and novel features regarding
the thing, and these produce a new interest which in
turn attracts further and continued attention.

There is no royal road to the development of volun-
tary attention. The only true method is work, prac-
tice, and use. You must practice on uninteresting
things, the primary interest being your desire to develop
the power of voluntary attention. But as you begin
to attend to the uninteresting thing you will become
interested in the task for its own sake. Take some
object and "place your mind upon it." Think of its

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 33

nature, where it came from, its use, its associations, its
probable future, of things related to it, etc., etc. Keep
the attention firmly upon it, and shut out all outside
ideas. Then, after a little practice of this kind, lay-
aside the object for the time being, and take it up
again the next day, endeavoring to discover new points
of interest in it. The main thing to be sought is to
hold the thing in your mind, and this can be done only
by discovering features of interest in it. The interest-
loving attention may rebel at this task at first, and will
seek to wander from the path into the green pastures
which are found on each side thereof. But you must
bring the mind back to the task, again and again.

After a time the mind will become accustomed to the
drill, and will even begin to enjoy it. Give it some
variety by occasionally changing the objects of exam-
ination. The object need not always be something to
be looked at. Instead, select some subject in history
or literature, and "run it down,^' endeavoring to bring
to light all the facts relating to it that are possible to
you. Anything may be used as the subject or object
of your inquiry; but what is chosen must be held in
the field of conscious attention firmly and fixedly. The
habit once acquired, you will find the practice most
fascinating. You will invent new subjects or objects
of inquiry, investigation, and thought, which in them-

34 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

selves will well repay you for your work and time.
But never lose sight of the main point — the develop-
ment of the power of voluntary attention.

In studying the methods of developing and training
the voluntary attention, the student should remember
that any exercise which develops the will, will result in
developing the attention; and, likewise, any exercise
which develops the voluntary attention will tend to
strengthen the will. The will and attention are bo
closely bound together that what affects one also influ-
ences the other. This fact should be borne in mind,
and the exercises and practices based upon it.

In practicing concentration of voluntary attention, it
should be remembered that concentrating consists not
only of focusing the attention upon a given object or
subject, but also of the shutting out of impressions from
other objects or subjects. Some authorities advise that
the student endeavor to listen to one voice among many,
or one instrument among the many of a band or orches-
tra. Others advise the practice of concentrating on the
reading of a book in a room filled by persons engaged
in conversation, and similar exercises. Whatever aids
in narrowing the circle of attention at a given moment
tends to develop the power of voluntary attention.

The study of mathematics and logic is also held to be
an excellent practice in concentration of voluntary at-

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 35

tention, inasmuch as these studies require close con-
centration and attention. Attention is also developed
by «Tiy Rf^TijyjYi— QT^^ whiVh flpTnaTirlR anahj.^is nf a
whole into its parts^ and then the synthesis or building
up of a whole from its scattered parts. Each of the
senses should play a part in the exercises, and in addi-
tion to this the mind should be trained to concentrate
upon some one idea held within itself — some mental
image or abstract idea existing independently of any ob-
ject of immediate sense report.

CHAPTER VI.
Perception.

IT is a common mistake that we perceive everything
that is reported to the mind by the senses. As
a matter of fact we perceive but a very small
portion of the reports of the senses. There are thou-
sands of sights reported by our eyes, sounds reported
by our ears, smells reported by our nostrils, and eon-
tacts reported by our nerves of touch, every day of our
lives, but which are not perceived or observed by the
mind. We perceive and observe only when the atten-
tion, reflex or voluntary, is directed to the report of
the senses, and when the mind interprets the report.
While perception depends upon the reports of the senses
for its raw material, it depends entirely upon the ap-
plication of the mind for its complete manifestation.

The student usually experiences great difficulty in
distinguishing between sensation and perception. A
sensation is a simple report of the senses, which is
received in consciousness. Perception is the thought
arising from the feeling of the sensation. Perception
usually combines several sensations into one thought or
percept. By sensation the mind feels; by perception

YOUB MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 37

it knows that it feels, and recognizes the object causing
the sensation. Sensation merely brings a report from
outside objects, while perception identifies the report
with the object which caused it. Perception inievprets
the reports of sensation. Sensation reports a flash of
light, from above; perception interprets the light as
starlight, or moonlight, or sunlight, or as the flash of a
meteor. Sensation reports a sharp, pricking, painful
contact; perception interprets it as the prick of a pin.
Sensation reports a red spot on a green background;
perception interprets it as a berry on a bush.

Moreover, while we may perceive a simple single
sensation, our perceptions are usually of a group of sen-
sations. Perception is usually employed in grouping
sensations and identifying them with the object or ob-
jects causing them. In its identification it draws upon
whatever memory of past experiences the mind may
possess. Memory, imagination, feeling, and thought
are called into play, to some extent, in every clear per-
ception. The infant has but feeble perception, but as
it gains experience it begins to manifest perceptions
and form percepts. Sensations resemble the letters of
the alphabet, and perception the forming of words and
sentences from the letters. Thus c, a, and t symbolize
sensations, while the word ^^cat,'' formed from them,
symbolizes the perception of the object

38 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

It is held that all knowledge begins with sensation;
that the mental history of the race or individual begins
with its first sensation. But, while this is admitted, it
must be remembered that sensation simply provides the
simple, elementary, raw material of thought. The first
process of actual thought, or knowledge, begins with
perception. From our percepts all of our higher con-
cepts and ideas are formed. Perception depends upon
association of the sensation with other sensations pre-
viously experienced; it is based upon experience. The
greater the experience, the greater is the possibility of
perception, all else being equal.

When perception begins, the mind loses sight of the
sensation in itself, for it identifies it as a quality of the
thing producing it. The sensation of light is thought
of as a quality of the star; the pricking sensation is
thought of as a quality of the pin or chestnut bur;
the sensation of odor is thought of as a quality of the
rose. In the case of the rose, the several sensations of
sight, touch, and smell, in their impression of the quali-
ties of color, shape, softness, and perfume, are grouped
together in the percept of the complete object of the
flower.

A percept is ^^that which is perceived; the object of
the act of perception.^' The percept, of course, is a
mental state corresponding with its outside object. It

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT, 39

is a combination of several sensations which are re-
garded as the qualities of the outside object, to which
are combined the memories of past experiences, ideas,
feelings, and thoughts. A percept, then, while the
simplest form of thought, is seen to be a mental state.
The formation of a percept consists of three gradual
stages, viz.: (1) The attention forms definite con-
scious sensations from indefinite nervous reports; (2)
the mind interprets these definite conscious sensations
and attributes them to the outside object causing them;
(3) the related sensations are grouped together, their
unity perceived, and they are regarded as qualities of
the outside object.

The plain distinction between a sensation and a per-
cept may be fixed in the mind by remembering the
following: A sensation is a feeling; a percept is a
simple thought identifying one or more sensations. A
sensation is merely the conscious recognition of an
excitation of a nerve end; a percept resulta-fxcm a
distinct mental process regarding the sensation.

Developing Perception.

It is of the utmost importance that we develop and
train our powers of perception. For our education de-
pends very materially upon our perceptive power. What
matters it to us if the outside world be filled with

40 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

manifold objects, if we do not perceive them to exist!
Upon perception depends the material of our mental
world. Many persons go through the world without
perceiving even the most obvious facts. Their eyes
and ears are perfect instruments, their nerves convey
accurate reports, but the perceptive faculties of the
mind fail to observe and interpret the report of the
senses. They see and hear distinctly, but the reports of
the senses are not observed or noted by them; they
mean nothing to them. One may see many things, and
yet observe but few. clit j.s not upon what we see or
hear that our stock of knowledge depends,, so-much as
it does upon what we perceive, notice, or observe.

Not only is one's stock of practical knowledge largely
based upon developed perception, but one's success also
depends materially upon the same faculties. In busi-
ness and professional life the successful man is usually
he who has developed perceptive powers; he who has
learned to perceive, observe, and note. The man who
perceives and takes mental notes of what occurs in his
world is the man who is apt to know things when such
knowledge is needed. In this age of ^^book education'^
we find that the young people are not nearly so observ-
ant as are those children who had to depend upon the
powers of perception for their knowledge. The young
Arab or Indian will observe more in an hour than the

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 41

civilized child will in a day. To live in a world of
books tends, in many cases, to weaken the powers of
observation and perception.

Perception may be developed by practice. Begin by
taking notice of the things seen and heard in your
usual walks. Keep wide open the eyes of the mind.
Notice the faces of people, their walk, their character-
istics. Look for interesting and odd things, and you
will see them. Do not go through life in a daydream,
but keep a sharp lookout for things of interest and
value. The most familiar things will repay you for
the time and work of examining them in detail, and
the practice gained by such tasks will prove valuable
in your development of perception.

An authority remarks that very few persons, even
those living in the country, know whether a cow's ears
are above, below, behind, or in front of her horns; nor
whether cats descend trees head first or tail first. Very
few persons can distinguish between the leaves of the
various kinds of familiar trees in their neighborhood.
Comparatively few persons are able to describe the
house in which they live, at least beyond the most
general features — the details are unknown.

Houdin, the French conjurer, was able to pass by a
shop window and perceive every article in it, and then
repeat what he had seen. But he acquired this skill

43 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

only by constant and gradual practice. He himself
decried his skill and claimed that it was as nothing
compared to that of the fashionable woman who can
pass another woman on the street and ^Hake in" her
entire attire, from head to foot, at one glance, and "be
able to describe not only the fashion and quality of the
stuffs, but also say if the lace be real or only machine
made/^ A former president of Yale is said to have
been able to glance at a book and read a quarter of a
page at one time.

Any study or occupation which requires analysis will
develop the power of perception. Consequently, if we
will analyze the things we see, resolving them into their
parts or elements, we will likewise develop the percep-
tive faculties. It is a good exercise to examine some
small object and endeavor to discover as many separate
points of perception as possible, noting them on a sheet
of paper. The most familiar object, if carefully exam-
ined, will yield rich returns.

If two persons will enter into a contest of this kind,
the spirit of rivalry and competition will quicken the
powers of observation. Those who have had the pa-
tience and perseverance to systematically practice exer-
cises of this kind, report that they notice a steady
improvement from the very start. But even if one
does not feel inclined to practice in this way, it will

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT, 43

be found possible to begin to take notice of the details
of things one sees, the expression of persons^ faces, the
details of their dress, their tone of voice, the quality
of the goods we handle, and the little things especially.
Perception, like attention, follows interest; but, like-
wise, interest may be created in things by observing
their details, peculiarities, and characteristics.

The best knowledge gained by one is that resulting
from his own personal perception. There is a nearness
and trueness about that which one knows in this way
which is lacking in that which he merely believes be-
cause he has read or heard it. One can make such
knowledge a part of himself. Not only is one's knowl-
edge dependent upon what he perceives, but his very
character also results from the character of his percepts.
The influence of environment is great — and what is
environment but things perceived about one? It is not
so much what lies outside of one, as what part of it
gets inside of one by perception. By directing his at-
tention to desirable objects, and perceiving as much of
them as is possible, one really builds his own character
at will.

The world needs good ^^perceivers'' in all the walks
of life. It finds a shortage of them, and is demanding
them loudly, being willing to pay a good price for their
services. The person who can voluntarily perceive and

44 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

observe the details of any profession, business, or trade
will go far in that vocation. The education of children
should take the faculty of perception into active con-
sideration. The kindergarten has taken some steps in
this direction, but there is much more to be done.

CHAPTER VII.
Memory.

PSYCHOLOGISTS class as '^representative men-
tal processes'' those known as memory and
imagination, respectively. The term ^'repre-
sentation'' is used in psychology to indicate the processes
of re-presentation or presenting again to consciousness
that which has formerly been presented to it but which
afterward passed from its field. As Hamilton says:
"The general capability of knowledge necessarily re-
quires that, besides the power of evoking out of uncon-
sciousness one portion of our retained knowledge in
preference to another, we possess the faculty of repre-
senting in consciousness what is thus evoked.''

Memory is the primary representative faculty or
power of the mind. Imagination dependsjuponjaem-
ory for its material, as we shall see when we consider
that faculty. Every mental process which involves the
remembrance, recollection, or representation of a sen-
sation, perception, mental image, thought, or idea pre-
viously experienced must depend upon memory for its
material. Memory is the great storehouse of the mind
in which are placed the records of previous mental
experiences. It is a part of the great subconscious field

46 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

of mental activity, and the greater part of its work is
performed below the plane of consciousness. It is only
when its results are passed into the field of conscious-
ness that we are aware of its existence. We know mem-
ory only by its works. Of its nature we know but little,
although certain of its principal laws and principles
have been discovered.

It was formerly customary to class memory with the
various faculties of the mind, but later psychology no
longer so considers it. Memory is now regarded as a
power of the general mind, manifesting in connection
with every faculty of the mind. It is now regarded
as belonging to the great subconscious field of menta-
tion, and its explanation must be sought there. It is
utterly unexplainable otherwise.

The importance of memory cannot be overestimated.
iSTot only does a man's character and education depend
chiefly upon it, but his very mental being is bound up
with it. If there were no memory, man would never
progress mentally beyond the mental state of the new-
born babe. He would never be able to profit by experi-
ence. He would never be able to form clear percep-
tions. He would never be able to reason or form
judgments. The processes of thought depend for ma-
terial upon the memory of past experiences; this mate-
rial lacking, there can be no thought.

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 47

Memory has two important general functions, viz. :

(1) The retention of impressions and experiences; and

(2) the reproduction of the impressions and experi-
ences so retained.

It was formerly held that the memory retained only
a portion of the impressions and experiences originally
noted by it. But the present theory is that it retains
every impression and experience which is noted by it.
It is true that many of these impressions are never
reproduced in consciousness, but experiments tend to
prove, nevertheless, that the records are still in the
memory and that appropriate and sufficiently strong
stimuli will bring them into the field of consciousness.
The phenomena of somnambulism, dreams, hysteria,
delirium, approach of death, etc., show that the sub-
conscious mind has an immense accumulation of appar-
ently forgotten facts, which unusual stimuli will serve
to recall.

The power of the memory to reproduce the retained
impressions and experiences is variously called remem-
brance, recollection, or memory. This power varies
materially in various individuals, but it is an axiom of
psychology that the memory of any person may be
developed and trained by practice. The ability to recall
depends to a great extent upon the clearness and depth
of the original impression, which in turn depends upon

48 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

the degree of attention given to it at the time of its
occurrence. Recollection is also greatly aided by the
law of association^ or the principle whereby one mental
fact is linked to another. The more facts to which a
given fact is linked, the greater the ease by which it is
recalled or remembered. Eecollection is also greatly
assisted by use and exercise. Like the fingers, the
memory cells of the brain become expert and efficient
by use and exercise, or stiff and inefficient by lack of
the same.

In addition to the phases of retention and repro-
duction, there are two important phases of memory,
viz.: (3) Recognition of the reproduced impression or
experience; and (4) localization of the impression, or
its reference to a more or less definite time and place.

The recognition of the recalled impression is quite
important. It is not enough that the impression be
retained and recalled. If we are not able to recognize
the recalled impression as having been experienced be-
fore, the recollection will be of but little use to us in
our thought processes ; the purposes of thought demand
that we shall be able to identify the recalled impression
with the original one. Recognition is really re-cogni-
tion— re-knowing. Recognition is akin to perception.
The mind becomes conscious of the recalled impression
just as it becomes conscious of the sensation. It then

YOUB MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 49

recognizes the relation of the recalled impression to the
original one just as it realizes the relation of the sensa-
tion to its object.

The localization of the recalled and recognized im-
pression is also important. Even if we recognize the
recalled impression, it will be of comparatively little
use to us unless we are able to locate it as having hap-
pened yesterday, last week, last month, last year, ten
years ago, or at some time in the past; and as having
happened in our office, house, or in such-and-such a
place in the street, or in some distant place. Without
the power of localization we should be unable to con-
nect and associate the remembered fact with the time,
place, and persons with which it should be placed to be
of use and value to us in our thought processes.

Detention.

The retention of a mental impression in the memory
depends very materially upon the clearness and depth
of the original impression. And this clearness and
depth, as we have previously stated, depend upon the
degree of attention bestowed upon the original impres-
sion. Attention, then, is the important factor in the
forming and recording of impressions. The rule is:
Slight attention, faint record; marked attention, clear
and deep record. To fix this fact in the mind, the stu-

50 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

dent may think of the retentive and reproductive
phases of memory as a phonographic record. The re-
ceiving diaphragm of the phonograph represenis the
sense organs, and the recording needle represents the
attention. The needle makes the record on the cylinder
deep or faint according to the condition of the needle.
A loud sound may be recorded but faintly, if the needle
is not properly adjusted. And, further, it must be
remembered that the strength of the reproduction de-
pends almost entirely upon the clearness and depth of
the original impression on the cylinder ; as is the record,
so is the reproduction. It will be well for the student
to carry this symbol of the phonograph in his mind;
it will aid him in developing his powers of memory.

In this connection we should remember that atten-
tion depends largely upon interest. Therefore we would
naturally expect to find that we remember interesting
things far more readily than those which lack interest.
This supposition is borne out in actual experience.
This accounts for the fact that every one remembers a
certain class of things better than he does others. One
remembers faces, another dates, another spoken con-
versation, another written words, and so on. It will be
found, as a rule, that each person is interested in the
class of things which he most easily remembers. The
artist easily remembers faces and details of faces, or

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT, 51

scenery and details thereof. The musician easily re-
calls passages or -bars of mnsic^ often of a most com-
plicated nature. The speculator easily recalls the
quotations of his favorite stocks. The racing man
recalls without difficulty the ^^odds^^ posted on a certain
horse on a certain day, or the details of a race which
was run many years ago. The moral is: Arouse^ and
induce^arv interesiJifL-ihe things ivJiich you wish-4o
remember. This interest may be aroused by studying
the things in question, as we have suggested in a pre-
ceding chapter.

Visualization in Memory.

Many of the best authorities hold that original im-
pressions may be made clear and deep, and the process
of reproduction accordingly rendered more efficient, by
the practice of visualizing the thing to be remembered.
By visualizing is meant the formation of a mental im-
age of the thing in the imagination. If you wish to
remember the appearance of anything, look at it closely,
with attention, and then turning away from it endeavor
to reproduce its appearance as a mental picture in the
mind. If this is done, a particularly clear impression
will be made in the memory, and when you recall the
thing you will find that you will also recall the clear
mental image of it. Of course the greater the number

52 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

of details observed and included in the original mental
image, the greater the remembered detail.

Perceptiois^ IX Memory.

jS'ot only is attention necessary in forming clear mem-
ory records, but careful perception is also important.
Without clear perception there is a lack of detail in the
retained record, and the element of association is lack-
ing. It is not enough to merely remember the thing
itself ; we should also remember what it is, and all
about it. The practice of the methods of developing
perception, given in a preceding lesson, will tend to
develop and train the retentive, reproductive, recogni-
tive, and locative powers of the memory. The rule is :
The greater the degree of perception accorded a thing,
the greater the detail of the retained impression, and
the greater the ease of the recollection.

Understanding and Memory.

Another important point in acquiring impressions in
memory is this: That the better the understanding of
the subject or object, the clearer the impressions regard-
ing it, and the clearer the recollection of it. This fact
is proved by experiment and experience. A subject
which will be remembered only with difficulty under
ordinary circumstances will be easily remembered if it

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 53

is fully explained to the person, and accompanied by a
few familiar illustrations or examples. It is very diffi-
cult to remember a meaningless string of words, while
a sentence which conveys a clear meaning may be mem-
orized easily. If we understand what a thing is for,
its uses and employment, we remember it far more
easily than if we lack this understanding. Elbring-
haus, who conducted a number of experiments along
this line, reports that he could memorize a stanza of
poetry in about one tenth the time required to memo-
rize the same amount of nonsense syllables. Gordy
states that he once asked a capable student of the Johns
Hopkins University to give him an account of a lecture
to which he had just listened. "I cannot do it,'^ re-
plied the student; "it was not logical. ^^ The rule is:
The more one knows about a certain thing, the more
easily is that thing remembered. This is a point worth
noting.

CHAPTEE VIII.

Memory — Continued.

THE subject of memory cannot be touched upon
intelligently without a consideration of the
Law of Association, one of the important psy-
chological principles.

The Law of Association.

What is known in psychology as the Law of Asso-
ciation is based on the fact that no idea exists in the
mind except in association with other ideas. This is
not generally recognized, and the majority of persons
will dispute the law at first thought. But the existence
and appearance of ideas in the mind are governed by a
mental law as invariable and constant as the physical
law of gravitation. Every idea has associations with
other ideas. Ideas travel in groups, and one group is
associated with another group, and so on, until in the
end every idea in one's mind is associated directly or
indirectly with every other idea. Theoretically, at
least, it would be possible to begin with one idea in the
mind of a person, and then gradually unwind his entire
stock of ideas like the yarn on the ball. Our thoughts

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 55

proceed according to this law. We sit down in a
^^brown study'^ and proceed from one subject to another,
until we are unable to remember any connection between
the first thought and the last. But each step of the
reverie was connected with the one preceding and the
one succeeding it. It is interesting to trace back these
connections. Poe based one of his celebrated detective
stories on this law. The reverie may be broken into
by a sudden impression from outside, and we will then
proceed from that impression, connecting it with some-
thing else already in our experience, and starting a new
chain of sequence.

Often we fail to trace the associations governing our
ideas, but the chain is there nevertheless. One may
think of a past scene or experience without any apparent
cause. A little thought will show that something seen,
or a few notes of a song floating to the ears, or the
fragrance of a flower, has supplied the connecting link
between the past and the present. A suggestion of
mignonette will recall some past event in which the
perfume played a part; some one^s handkerchief, per-
haps, carried the same odor. Or an old familiar tune
reminds one of some one, something, or some place in
the past. A familiar feature in the countenance of a
passer-by will start one thinking of some one else who
had that kind of a mouth, that shaped nose, or that

56 YOUR MIND^AND HOW TO USE IT.

expression of the eye — and away he will be off in a
sequence of remembered experiences. Often the start-
ing idea^ or the connecting links, may appear but dimly
in consciousness ; but rest assured they are always there.
In fact, we frequently accept this law, unconsciously
and without realizing its actual existence. For instance,
one makes a remark, and at once we wonder, "How
did he come to think of that?'^ and, if we are shrewd,
we may discover what was in his mind before he spoke.

There are two general classes of association of ideas
in memory, viz.: (1) Association of contiguity, and
(2) logical association.

Association of contiguity is that form of association
depending upon the previous association in time or
space of ideas which have been impressed on the mind.
For instance, if you met Mr. and Mrs. Wetterhorn and
were introduced to them one after the other, thereafter
you will naturally remember Mr. W. when you think
of Mrs. W., and vice versa. You will naturally remem-
ber N*apoleon when you think of Wellington, or Bene-
dict Arnold when you think of Major Andre, for the
same reason. You will also naturally remember b and c
when you think of a. Likewise, you will think of abstract
time when you think of abstract space, of thunder when
you think of lightning, of colic when you recall green
apples, of love making and moonlight nights when you

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 57

think of college days. In the same way we remember
things which occurred just before or just after the
event in our mind at the moment; of things near in
space to the thing of which we are thinking.

Logical association depends upon the relation of
likeness or difference between several things thought of.
Things thus associated may have never come into the
mind at the same previous time, nor are they neces-
sarily connected in time and space. One may think of
a book, and then proceed by association to think of
another book by the same author, or of another author
treating of the same subject. Or he may think of a
book directly opposed to the first, the relation of dis-
tinct difference causing the associated idea. Logical
association depends upon inner relations, and not upon
the outer relations of time and space. This innerness
of relation between things not connected in space or
time is discovered only by experience and education.
The educated man realizes many points of relationship
between things that are thought by the uneducated man
to be totally unrelated. Wisdom and knowledge con-
sist largely in the recognition of relations between

things.

Association iisr Memory.

It follows from a consideration of the Law of Asso-
ciation that when one wishes to impress a thing upon

58 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

the memory he should, as an authority says, ^^Multiply
associations; entangle the fact you wish to remember
in a net of as many associations as possible, especially
those that are logical/^ Hence the advice to place your
facts in groups and classes in the memory. As Blackie
says: ^^Nothing helps the mind so much as order and
classification. Classes are always few, individuals
many; to know the class well is to know what is most
essential in the character of the individual, and what
burdens the memory least to retain/^

Repetition" in Memory.

Another important principle of memory is that the
impressions acquire depth and clearness by repetition.
Repeat a line of poetry once, and you may remember it ;
repeat it again, and your chances of remembering it are
greatly increased ; repeat it a sufficient number of times,
and you cannot escape remembering it. The illustra-
tion of the phonograph record will help you to under-
stand the reason of this. The rule is: Oonstant
repetition deepens memory impressions; frequent re-
viewing and recalling what has been memorized tends
to Jceep the records clear and clean, beside deepening
the impression at each review.

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT, 59

General Eules of Memory.

The following general rules will be of service to the
student who wishes to develop his memory: —

Making Impressions.

(1) Bestow attention.

(2) Cultivate interest.

(3) Manifest perception.

(4) Cultivate understanding.

(5) Form associations.

(6) Eepeat and review.

Recalling Impressions,

(1) Endeavor to get hold of the loose end of asso-
ciation^ and then unwind your memory ball of yarn.

(2) When you recall an impression, send it back
with energy to deepen the impression, and attach it to
as many new associations as possible.

(3) Practice a little memorizing and recalling each
day, if only a line of verse. The memory improves by
practice, and deteriorates by neglect and disuse.

(4) Demand good service of your memory, and it
will learn to respond. Learn to trust it, and it will
rise to the occasion. How can you expect your mem-
ory to give good service when you continually abuse it
and tell every one of "the wretched memory I have;

60 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

I can never remember anything'^? Your memory is
very apt to accept your statements as truth ; our mental
faculties have an annoying habit of taking us at our
word in these matters. Tell your memory what you
expect it to do; then trust it and refrain from abusing
it and giving it a bad name.

Final Advice.

Finally, remember this rule: You get out of your
memory only that which you place in it. Place in it
good, clear, deep impressions, and it will reproduce
good, clear, strong recollections. Think of your mem-
ory as a phonographic record, and take care that you
place the right kind of impressions upon it. In mem-
ory you reap that which you have sown. You must
give to the memory before you can receive from it.
Of one thing you may rest assured, namely, that unless
you take sufficient interest in the things to be remem-
bered, you will find that the memory will not take
sufficient interest in them to remember them. Memory
demands interest before it will take interest in the task.
It demands attention before it will give attention. It
demands understanding before it will give understand-
ing. It demands association before it will respond to
association. It demands repetition before it will re-
peat. The memory is a splendid instrument, but it

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 61

stands on its dignity and asserts its rights. It belongs
to the old dispensation — it demands compensation and
believes in giving only in equal measure to what it
receives. Our advice is to get acquainted with your
memory, and make friends with it. Treat it well and
it will serve you well. But neglect it, and it will turn
its back on you.

CHAPTEE IX.

Imagination.

THE imagination belongs to the general class of
mental processes called the representative facul-
ties, by which is meant the processes in which
there are re-presented, or presented again, to conscious-
ness impressions previously presented to it.

As we have indicated elsewhere, the imagination is
dependent upon memory for its materials — its records
of previous impressions. But imagination is more than
mere memory or recollection of these previously experi-
enced and recorded impressions. There is, in addition
to the re-presentation and recollection, a process of
arranging the recalled impressions into new forms and
new combinations. The imagination not only gathers
together the old impressions, but also creates new com-
binations and forms from the material so gathered.

Psychology gives us many hairsplitting definitions
and distinctions between simple reproductive imagina-
tion and memory, but these distinctions are technical
and as a rule perplexing to the average student. In
truth, there is very little, if any, difference between
simple reproductive imagination and memory, although

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USF IT. 63

when the imagination indulges in constructive activity
a new feature enters into the process which is absent in
pure memory operations. In simple reproductive imag-
ination there is simply the formation of the mental
image of some previous experience — ^the reproduction
of a previous mental image. This differs very little
from memory, except that the recalled image is clearer
and stronger. In the same way in ordinary memory,
in the manifestation of recollection, there is often the
same clear, strong mental image that is produced in
reproductive imagination. The two mental processes
blend into each other so closely that it is practically
impossible to draw the line between them, in spite of
the technical differences urged by the psychologists.
Of course the mere remembrance of a person who pre-
sents himself to one is nearer to pure memory than to
imagination, for the process is that of recognition.
But the memory or remembrance of the same person
when he is absent from sight is practically that of
reproductive imagination. Memory, in its stage of
recognition, exists in the child mind before reproduc-
tive imagination is manifested. The latter, therefore,
is regarded as a higher mental process.

But still higher in the scale is that which is known
as constructive imagination. This form of imagina-
tion appears at a later period of child mentation, and

64 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

is regarded as a later evolution of mental processes of
the race. Gordy makes the following distinction be-
tween the two phases of imagination: ^^The difference
between reproductive imagination and constructive
imagination is that the images resulting from repro-
ductive imagination are copies of past experience, while
those resulting from constructive imagination are not.
* * * To learn whether any particular image, or com-
bination of images, is the product of reproductive or
constructive imagination, all we have to do is to learn
whether or not it is a copy of a past experience. Our
memories, of course, are defective, and we may be un-
certain on that account; but apart from that, we need
be in no doubt whatever.^^

Many persons hearing for the first time the state-
ment of psychologists that the imaginative faculties
can re-present and re-produce or re-combine only the
images which have previously been impressed upon the
mind, are apt to object that they can, and frequently
do, image things which they have not previously experi-
enced. But can they and do they ? Is it not true that
what they believe to be original creations of the imag-
ination are merely new combinations of original impres-
sions ? For instance, no one ever saw a unicorn, and yet
some one originally imagined its form. But a little
thought will show that the image of the unicorn is

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT, 65

merely that of an animal having the head, neck, and
body of a horse, with the beard of a goat, the legs of a
buck, the tail of a lion, and a long, tapering horn,
spirally twisted, in the middle of the forehead. Each
of the several parts of the unicorn exists in some living
animal, although the unicorn, composed of all of these
parts, is non-existent outside of fable. In the same
way the centaur is composed of the body, legs, and tail
of the horse and the trunk, head, and arms of a man.
The satyr has the head, body, and arms of a man, with
the horns, legs, and hoofs of a goat. The mermaid has
the head, arms, and trunk of a woman, joined at the
waist to the body and tail of a fish. The mythological
^^devir^ has the head, body, and arms of a man, with
the horns, legs, and cloven foot of the lower animal,
and a peculiar tail composed of that of some animal but
tipped with a spearhead. Each of these characteristics
is composed of familiar images of experience. The im-
agination may occupy itself for a lifetime turning out
impossible animals of this kind, but every part thereof
will be found to correspond to something existent in
nature, and experienced by the mind of the person cre-
ating the strange beast.

In the same way the imagination may picture a
familiar person or thing acting in an unaccustomed
manner, the latter having no basis in fact so far as the

66 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

individual person or thing is concerned, but being war-
ranted by some experience concerning other persons or
things. For instance, one may easily form the image
of a dog swimming under water like a fish, or climbing
a tree like a cat. Likewise, one may form a mental
image of a learned, bewigged High Chancellor, or a
venerable Archbishop of Canterbury, dressed like a
clown, standing on his head, balancing a colored foot-
ball on his feet, sticking his tongue in his cheek and
winking at the audience. In the same way one may
imagine a railroad running across a barren desert, or a
steep mountain, upon which there is not as yet a rail
laid. The bridge across a river may be imaged in the
same way. In fact, this is the way that everything
is mentally created, constructed, or invented — the old
materials being combined in a new way, and arranged
in a new fashion. Some psychologists go so far as to
say that no mental image of memory is an exact repro-
duction of the original impression; that there are al-
ways changes due to the unconscious operation of the
constructive imagination.

The constructive imagination is able to ^^tear things
to pieces^^ in search for material, as well as to "join
things together'^ in its work of building. The impor-
tance of the imagination in all the processes of intel-
lectual thought is great. Without imagination man

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 67

A

coi^ld not reason or manifest any intellectual process.
It ik impossible to consider the subject of thought with-
out first regarding the processes of imagination. And
yet it\is common to hear persons speak of the imag-
ination, as ^if it , were a faculty of mere fancy, useless
and without plaiie in the practical world of thought.

. \ I \

Developing the Imaginatioist.

The invagination is capable of development and train-
ing. Tlie general rules for development of the imag-
ination are practically those which we have stated in
connection with the development of the memory. There
is the same necessity for plenty of material; for the
formation of clear and deep impressions and clear-cut
mental images; the same necessity for repeated impres-
sion, and the frequent use and employment of the
faculty. The practice of visualization, of course,
strengthens the power of the imagination as it does
that of the memory, the two powers being intimately
related. The imagination may be strengthened and
trained by deliberately recalling previous impressions
and then combining them into new relations. The
materials of memory may be torn apart and then re-
combined and re-grouped. In the same way one inay>
enter into the feelings and thoughts of other persons r
by imagining one^s self in their place and endeavoring \

68 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

to act out in imagination the life of such persons. In
this way one may build up a much fuller and broader
conception of human nature and human motives.

In this place, also, we should caution the student
against the common waste of the powers of the imagina-
tion, and the dissipation of its powers in idle fancies
and daydreams. Many persons misuse their imagina-
tion in this way and not only weaken its power for
effective work but also waste their time and energy.
Daydreams are notoriously unfit for the real, practical

work of life.

Imagination and Ideals.

And, finally, the student should remember that in the
category of the imaginative powers must be placed that
phase of mental activity which has so much to do with
the making or marring of one's life — the formation of
ideals. Our ideals are the patterns after which we
shape our life. According to the nature of our ideals
is the character of the life we lead.

Our ideals are the supports of that which we call
character.

It is a truth, old as the race, and now being per-
ceived most clearly by thinkers, that indeed "as a man
thinketh in his heart so is he.^' The influence of our
ideals is perceived to affect not only our character but
also our place and degree of success in life. We grow

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 69

to be that of which we have held ideals. If we create
an ideal, either of general qualities or else these quali-
ties as manifested by some person living or dead, and
keep that ideal ever before us, we cannot help develop-
ing traits and qualities corresponding to those of our
ideal. Careful thought will show that character depends
greatly upon the nature of our ideals; therefore we see
the effect of the imagination in character building.

Moreover, our imagination has an important bearing
on our actions. Many a man has committed an im-
prudent or immoral act which he would not have done
had he been possessed of an imagination which showed
him the probable results of the action. In the same
way many men have been inspired to great deeds and
achievements by reason of their imagination picturing
to them the possible results of certain action. The ^^big
things^^ in all walks of life have been performed by
men who had sufficient imagination to picture the pos-
sibilities of certain courses or plans. The railroads,
bridges, telegraph lines, cable lines, and other works of
man are the results of the imagination of some men.
The good fairy godmother always provides a vivid and
lively imagination among the gifts she bestows upon
her beloved godchildren. Well did the old philosopher
pray to the gods : "And, with all, give unto me a clear
and active imagination.^^

70 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

The dramatic values of life depend upon the quality
of the imagination. Life without imagination is me-
chanical and dreary. Imagination may increase the
susceptibility to pain, but it pays for this by increasing
the capacity for joy and happiness. The pig has but
little imagination, — little pain and little joy, — ^but who
envies the pig? The person with a clear and active
imagination is in a measure a creator of his world, or
at least a re-creator. He takes an active part in the
creative activities of the universe, instead of being e
mere pawn pushed here and there in the game of life.

Again, the divine gift of sympathy and understand-
ing depends materially upon the possession of a good
imagination. One can never understand the pain or
problems of another unless he first can imagine him-
self in the place of the other. Imagination is at the
very heart of sympathy. One may be possessed of great
capacity for feeling, but owing to his lack of imagina-
tion may never have this feeling called into action.
The person who would sympathize with others must first
learn to understand them and feel their emotions. This
he can do only if he has the proper degree of imagina-
tion. Those who reach the heart of the people must
first be reached by the feelings of the people. And this
is possible only to him whose imagination enables him
to picture himself in the same condition as others, and

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 71

thus awaken his latent feelings and sympathies and
understanding. Thus it is seen that the imagination
touches not only our intellectual life but also our emo-
tional nature. Imagination is the very life of the soul.

CHAPTER X.

The Feelings.

IN thinking of the mind and its activities we are
accustomed to the general idea that the mental
processes are chiefly those of intellect^ reason,
thought. But, as a fact, the greater part of the mental
activities are those concerned with feeling and emotion.
The intellect is the youngest child of the mind, and
while making its presence strenuously known in the
manner of all youngest children so that one is perhaps
justified in regarding it as ^'^the whole tiling'^ in the
family, nevertheless it really plays but a comparatively
small part in the general work of the mental family.
The activities of the ^^feeling'^ side of life greatly out-
number those of the ^^thinking" side, are far stronger
in their influence and effect, as a rule, and, in fact, so
color the intellectual processes, unconsciouslj^, as to con-
stitute their distinctive quality except in the case of a
very few advanced thinkers.

But there is a difference between ^^feeling" and "emo-
tion,^^ as the terms are employed in psychology. The
former is the simple phase, the latter the complex.
Generally speaking, the resemblance or difference is

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 73

akin to that existing between sensation and perception,
as explained in a previous chapter. Beginning with
the simple, in order later on to reach the complex, we
shall now consider that which is known as simple "feel-
ing.'^

The term ^^feeling/^ as used in this connection in
3sychology, has been defined as ^*the simple agreeable
:>T disagreeable side of any mental state/' These agree-
able or disagreeable sides of mental states are quite
distinct from the act of knowing, which accompanies
them. One may perceive and thus ^^know'^ that another
is speaking to him and be fully aware of the words
being used and of their meaning. Ordinarily, and so
far as pure thought processes are concerned, this would
complete the mental state. But we must reckon on the
feeling side as well as on the thinking side of the mental
state. Accordingly we find that the knowledge of the
words of the other person and the meaning thereof
results in a mental state agreeable or disagreeable. In
the same way the reading of the words of a book, the
hearing of a song, or a sight or scene perceived, may
result in a more or less strong feeling, agreeable or dis-
agreeable. This sense^of^agreeable or disagreeable con-
sciousness is the essential characteristic of what we^ call
"feeling.^'

It is very difficult to explain feeling except in its own

U YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

terms. We know very well what we mean, or what
another means, when it is said that we or he 'Jeels sad/^
or has "a joyous feeling/^ or ^^a feeling of interest/'
And yet we shall find it very hard to explain the mental
state except in terms of feeling itself. Our knowledge
depends entirely upon our previous experience of the
feeling. As an authority says : ^^If we have never felt
pleasure, pain, fear, or sorrow, a quarto volume cannot
make us understand what such a mental state is.''
Every mental state is not distinguished by strong feel-
ing. There are certain mental states which are con-
cerned chiefly with intellectual effort, and in which all
trace of feeling seems to be absent, unless, as some have
claimed, the "feeling'' of interest or the lack of same
is a faint form of the feeling of pleasure or pain.
Habit may dull the feeling of a mental state until it is
apparently neutral, but there is generally a faint feeling
of like or dislike still left.

The elementary forms of feeling are closely allied
with those of simple sensation. But experiments have
revealed that there is a distinction in consciousness. It
has been discovered that one is often conscious of the
"touch" of a heated object before he is of the feeling
or pain resulting from it. Psychologists have pointed
out another distinction, namely: When we experience
a sensation we are accustomed to refer it to the

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 75

outside thing which is the object of it, as when we
touch the heated object; but when we experience a feel-
ing we instinctively refer it to ourself, as when the
heated object gives us pain. As an authority has said :
^^My feelings belong to me; but my sensations seem to
belong to the object which caused them/'

Another proof of the difference and distinction be-
tween sensation and feeling is the fact that the same
sensation will produce different feelings in different
persons experiencing the former, even at the same time.
For instance, the same sight will cause one person to
feel elated, and the other depressed; the same words
will produce a feeling of joy in one, and a feeling of
sorrow in another. The same sensation will produce
different feelings in the same person at different times.
An authority well says: "You drop your purse, and
you see it lying on the ground as you stoop to pick it
up, with no feeling either of pleasure or pain. But
if you see it after you have lost it and have hunted for
it a long time in vain, you have a pronounced feeling
of pleasure.''

There is a vast range of degree and kind in feeling.
Gordy says : "All forms of pleasure and pain are called
feelings. Between the pleasure which comes from eat-
ing a peach and that which results from solving a diffi-
cult problem, or learning good news of a friend, or

76 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

thinking of the progress of civilization — ^between the
pain that results from a cut in the hand and that which
results from the failure of a long-cherished plan or the
death of a friend — there is a long distance. But the
one group are all pleasures; the other all pains. And,
whatever the source of the pleasure or pain, it is alike
feeling/^

There are many different kinds of feelings. Some
arise from sensations of physical comfort or discomfort ;
others from purely physiological conditions; others
from the satisfaction of accustomed tastes, or the dis-
satisfaction arising from the stimulation of unaccus-
tomed tastes; others from the presence or absence of
comfort; others from the presence or absence of things
or persons for whom we have an affection or liking.
Over-indulgence often transforms the feeling of pleas-
ure into that of pain ; and, likewise, habit and* practice
may cause us to experience a pleasurable feeling from
that which formerly inspired feeling of. an opposite kind.
Feelings also differ in degree ; that is to say, some things
cause us to experience pleasurable feelings of a greater
intensity than do others, and some cause us to experi-
ence painful feelings of a greater intensity than do
others. These degrees of intensity depend more or less
upon the habit or experience of the individual. As a
general rule, feelings may be classified into (1) those

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 77

arising from physical sensations, and (3) those arising
from ideas.

The feelings depending upon physical sensations
arise either from inherited tendencies and inclinations
or from acquired habits and experience. It is an axiom
of the evolutionary school that any physical activity
that has been a habit of the race, long continued, be-
comes an instinctive pleasure-giving activity in the
individual. For instance, the race for many genera-
tions was compelled to hunt, fish, travel, swim, etc., in
order to maintain existence. The result is that we, the
descendants, are apt to find pleasure in the same activi-
ties as sport, games, exercise, etc. Many of our tenden-
cies and feelings are inherited in this way. To these
we have added many acquired habits of physical activ-
ity, which follow the same rule, i, e., that habit and
practice impart more or less pleasurable feeling. We
find more pleasure in doing those things which we can
do easily or quite well than in the opposite kind of
things.

The feelings depending upon ideas may also arise
from inheritance. Many of our mental tendencies and
inclinations have come down to us from the past. There
are certain feelings that are born in one, without a
doubt; that is to say, there is a great capacity for such
feelings which will be transformed into manifestation

78 YOUB MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

upon the presentation of the proper stimulus. Other
mental feelings depend upon our individual past experi-
ence, association, or suggestions from others — upon our
past environment, in fact. The ideals of those around
us will cause us to experience pleasure or pain, as the
case may be, under certain circumstances; the force of
suggestion along these lines is very strong indeed. Not
only do we experience feelings in response to present
sensations, but the recollection of some previous experi-
ence will also arouse feeling. In fact, feelings of this
kind are closely bound up with memory and imagina-
tion. Persons of vivid imagination are apt to feel
far more than others. They suffer more, and enjoy
more. Our sympathies, which depend largely upon our
imaginative power, are the cause of many of our feel-
ings of this kind.

Many of the facts which we generally ascribe to feel-
ing are really a part of the phenomena of emotion, the
latter being the more complex phase of feeling. For
the purposes of this consideration we have regarded
simple feeling as the raw material of emotion, the rela-
tion being compared to that existing between sensation
and perception. In our consideration of emotion we
shall see the fuller manifestation of feeling, and its
more complex expressions.

CHAPTER XL

The E^motions.

As we have seen in the preceding lessons, an emo-
tion is the more complex phase of feeling.
^ As a rule an emotion arises from a number
of feelings. Moreover, it is of a higher order of mental
activity. As we have seen, a feeling may arise either
from a physical sensation or from an idea. Emotion,
however, as a rule, is dependent upon an idea for its
expression, and always upon an idea for its direction
and its continuance. Feeling, of course, is the ele-
mental spirit of all emotional states, and, as an author-
ity has said, is the thread upon which the emotional
states are strung.

Halleck says: ^^When representative ideas appear,
the feeling in combination with them produces emotion.
After the waters of the Missouri combine with another
stream, they receive a different name, although they
flow toward the gulf in as great volume as before.
Suppose we liken the feeling due to sensation to the
Missouri River; the train of representative ideas to the
Mississippi before its junction with the Missouri. Emo-
tion may then be likened to the Mississippi after its

80 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

junction — after feeling has combined with representa-
tive ideas- The emotional stream will not be broader
and deeper than before. This analogy is employed only
to make the distinction clearer. The student must re-
member that mental powers are never actually as dis-
tinct as two rivers before their union. * * * The
student must beware of thinking that we have done
Avith feeling when we consider emotion. Just as the
waters of the Missouri flow on until they reach the gulf,
so does feeling run through every emotional state.^^ In
the above analogy the term ^^representative ideas/^ of
course, means the ideas of memory and imagination as
explained in previous chapters.

There is a close relation between emotion and the
physical expression thereof — a peculiar mutual action
and reaction between the mental state and the physical
action accompanying it. Psychologists are divided re-
garding this relation. One school holds that the phys-
ical expression follows and results from the mental
state. For instance, we hear or see something, and
thereupon experience the feeling or emotion of anger.
This emotional feeling reacts upon the body and causes
an increased heart beat, a tight closing of the lips, a
frown and lowered eyebrows, and clinched fists. Or
we may perceive something which causes the feeling or
emotion of fear, which reacts upon the body and pro-

YOUB MIND AND HOW TO USE IT, 81

duces pallor, raising of the hair, dropping of the jaw,
opening of the eyelids, trembling of the legs, etc. Ac-
cording to this school, and the popular idea, the mental
state precedes and causes the physical expression.

But another school of psychology, of which the late
Prof. William James is a leading authority, holds
that the physical expression precedes and causes the
mental state. For instance, in the cases above cited,
the perception of the anger-causing or fear-causing
sight first causes a reflex action upon the muscles, ac-
cording to inherited race habits of expression. This
muscular expression and activity, in turn, is held to
react upon the mind and to cause the feeling or emotion
of anger or fear, as the case may be. Professor James,
in some of his works, makes a forcible argument in sup-
port of this theory, and his opinions have influenced
the scientific thought of the day upon this subject.
Others, however, have sought to combat his theory by
equally forcible argument, and the subject is still under
lively and spirited discussion in psychological circles.

Without taking sides in the above controversy, many
psychologists proceed upon the hypothesis that there is
a mutual action and reaction between emotional mental
states and the appropriate physical expression thereof,
each in a measure being the cause of the other, and each
likewise being the effect of the other. For instance, in

82 YOUR MIND AND) HOW TO USE IT.

•

the cases above cited, the perception of the anger-pro-
ducing or fear-producing sight causes, almost or quite
simultaneously, the emotional mental state of anger or
fear, as the case may be, and the physical expression
thereof. Then rapidly ensues a series of mental and
physical reactions. The mental state acts upon the
physical expression and intensifies it. The physical
expression in turn reacts upon the mental state and
induces a more intense degree of the emotional feeling.
And so on, until the mental state and physical expres-
sion reach their highest point and then begin to subside
from exhaustion of energy. This middle-ground con-
ception meets all the requirements of the facts, and is
probably more nearly correct than either extreme theory.
Darwin in his classic work, ^The Expression of the
Emotions in Man and Animals,^^ has thrown a great
light on the subject of the expression of emotion in
physical motions. The Florentine scientist, Paolo
Mantegazza, added to Darwin's work with ideas of his
own and countless examples drawn from his own expe-
rience and observation. The work of Frangois Delsarte,
the founder of the school of expression which bears his
name, is also a most valuable addition to the thought on
this subject. The subject of the relation and reaction
between emotional feeling and physical expression is a
most fascinating one, and one in which we may expect

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 83

interesting and valuable discoveries during the next
twenty years.

The relation and reaction above mentioned are inter-
esting not only from the viewpoint of theory but also
because of their practicable application in emotional de-
velopment and training. It is an established truth of
psychology that each physical expression of an emo-
tional state serves to intensify the latter; it is pouring
oil on the fire. Likewise, it is equally true that the
repression of the physical expression of an emotion
tends to restrain and inhibit the emotion itself.

Halleck says : "If we watch a person growing angry,
we shall see the emotion increase as he talks loud,
frowns deeply, clinches his fist, and gesticulates wildly.
Each expression of his passion is reflected back upon
the original anger and adds fuel to the fire. If he
resolutely inhibits the muscular expressions of his an-
ger, it will not attain great intensity, and it will soon
die a quiet death. * * * Not without reason are those
persons called cold blooded who habitually restrain as
far as possible the expression of their emotion; who
never frown or throw any feeling into their tones, even
when a wrong inflicted upon some one demands ag-
gressive measures. There is here no wave of bodily ex-
pression to flow back and augment the emotional state.^^

In this connection we call vour attention to the

84 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

familiar and oft-quoted passage from the works of
Prof. William James: ^^Eefuse to express a passion
and it dies. Count ten before venting your anger and
its occasion seems ridiculous. Whistling to keep up
courage is no mere figure of speech. On the other hand,
sit all day in a moping posture, sigh and reply to every-
thing with a dismal voice, and your melancholy lingers.
There is no more valuable precept in moral education
than this, as all who have experience know: If we
wish to conquer undesirable emotional tendencies in
ourselves, we must assiduously, and in the first instance
cold-bloodedly, go through the outward movements of
those contrary dispositions which we prefer to cultivate.
Smooth the brow, brighten the eye, contract the dorsal
rather than the ventral aspect of the frame, and speak
in a major key, and your heart must be frigid indeed
if it does not gradually thaw.'^

Along the same lines Halleck says: ^^Actors have
frequently testified to the fact that emotion will arise
if they go through the appropriate muscular movements.
In talking to a character on the stage, if they clinch
the fists and frown, they often find themselves becoming
really angry; if they start with counterfeit laughter,
they find themselves growing cheerful. A German pro-
fessor says that he cannot walk with a schoolgirFs
mincing step and air without feeling frivolous.^^

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 85

The wise student will acquire a great control over his
emotional nature if he will re-read and study the above
statements and quotations until he has grasped their
spirit and essence. In those few lines he is given a
philosophy of self-control and self-mastery that will be
worth much to him if he will but apply it in practice.
Patience, perseverance, practice, and will are required,
but the reward is great. Even to those who have not
the persistency to apply this truth fully, there will be
a partial reward if they will use it to the extent of
restraining so far as possible any undue physical ex-
pression of undesirable emotional excitement.

Some writers seem to regard capacity for great emo-
tional excitement and expression as a mark of a rich
and full character or noble soul. This is far from be-
ing true. While it is a fact that the cultivation of
certain emotions tends to create a noble character and
a full life, it is equally true that the tendency to ^^gush''
and indulge in hysterical or sentimental excesses is a
mark of an ill-controlled nature and a weak, rather than
strong, character. Moreover, it is a fact that excess
in emotional excitement and expression tends toward
the dissipation of the finer and nobler feelings which
otherwise would seek an outlet in actual doing and prac-
tical action. In the language of the old Scotch engi-
neer in the story, they are like the old locomotive which

86 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

^^spends sae much steam at the whustle that she hae
nane left to gae by/^

Emotional excitement and expression are largely de-
pendent upon habit and indulgence, although there is
a great difference, of course, in the emotional nature
and tendencies of various persons. Emotions, like
physical actions or intellectual processes, become habit-
ual by repetition. And habit renders all physical or
mental actions easy of repetition. Each time one mani-
fests anger, the deeper the mental path is made, and
the easier it is to travel that path the next time. In
the same way each time that anger is conquered and
inhibited, the easier will it be to restrain it the next
time. In the same way desirable habits of emotion and
expression may be formed.

Another point in the cultivation, training, and re-
straint of the emotions is that which has to do with
the control of the ideas which we allow to come into the
mind. Ideative habits may be formed — are formed, in
fact, by the majority of persons. We may cultivate the
habit of looking on the bright side of things ; of looking
for the best in those we meet; of expecting the best
things instead of the worst. By resolutely refusing to
give welcome to ideas calculated to arouse certain emo-
tions, feelings, passions, desires, sentiments, or similar
mental states, we may do much to prevent the arousing

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 87

of the emotion itself. Emotions usually are called forth
by some idea, and if we shut out the idea we may pre-
vent the emotional feeling from appearing. In this
connection the universal rule of psychology may be
applied: A mental state may be inhibited or restrained
by turning the attention to the opposite mental state.

The control of the attention is really the control of
every mental state.

We may use the will in the direction of the control
of the attention — the development and direction of
voluntary attention — and thus actually control every
phase of mental activity. The will is nearest to the
ego, or central being of man, and the attention is the
chief tool and instrument of the will. This fact cannot
be repeated too often. If it is impressed upon the mind
it will prove to be useful and valuable in many emer-
gencies of mental life. He who controls his attention
controls his mind, and in controlling his mind controls
himseK.

CHAPTEE XII.

The Instinctive £motions»

MAlsTY attempts to classify the emotions have
been made by the psychologists, but the best
authorities hold that beyond the purpose of
ordinary convenience in considering the subject any
classification is scientifically useless by reason of its
incompleteness. As James cleverly puts it: ^^Any
classification of the emotions is seen to be as true and
as natural as any other, if it only serves some pur-
pose/^ The difficulty attending the attempted classifi-
cation arises from the fact that every emotion is more
or less complex, and is made up of various feelings and
shades of emotional excitement. Each emotion blends
into others. Just as a few elements of matter may be
grouped into hundreds of thousands of combinations,
so the elements of feeling may be grouped into thou-
sands of shades of emotion. It is said that the two
elements of carbon and hydrogen form combinations
resulting in five thousand varieties of material sub-
stance, "from anthracite to marsh gas, from black coke
to colorless naphtha.^^ The same thing may be said of
the emotional combinations formed from two principal

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 89

elements of feeling. Moreover, the close distinction
between sensation and feeling on the one hand, and
between feeling and emotion on the other, serves to
further complicate the task.

For the purposes of our consideration, let us divide
the emotions into five general classes, as follows: (1)
Instinctive emotions, (2) social emotions, (3) religious
emotions, (4) agsthetic emotions, (5) intellectual emo-
tions. We shall new consider each of the above five
classes in turn.

The Instinctive Emotions.

Instinct is defined as ^^unconscious, involuntary, or
unreasoning prompting to any action,^^ or "the natural
unreasoning impulse by which an animal is guided to
the performance of any action, without thought of im-
proving the method.^^ An authority says: "Instinct
is a natural impulse leading animals, even prior to all
experience, to perform certain actions tending to the
welfare of the individual or the perpetuation of the
species, apparently without understanding the object
at which they may be supposed to aim, or deliberating
as to the best methods to employ. In many cases, as
in the construction of the cells of the bee, there is a
perfection about the result which reasoning man could
not have equaled, except by an application of the higher

90 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

mathematics to direct the operations carried out. Mr.
Darwin considers that animals, in time past as now,
have varied in their mental qualities, and that those
variations are inherited. Instincts also vary slightly in
a state of nature. This being so, natural selection can
ultimately bring them to a high degree of perfection.^^

It was formerly the fashion to ascribe instinct in the
lower animals, and in man, to something akin to "in-
nate ideas'^ implanted in each species and thereafter
continued by inheritance. But the application of the
idea of evolution to the science of psychology has re-
sulted in brushing away these old ideas. To-day it
holds that that which we call "instinct^^ is the result
of gradual development in the course of evolution, the
accumulated experience of the race being stored away
in the race memory, each individual adding a little
thereto by his acquired habits and experiences. Psy-
chologists now hold that the lower forms of these race
tendencies are closely akin to purely reflex actions, and
the higher forms, which are known as "instinctive emo-
tions,^^ are phenomena of the subconscious mind result-
ing from race memory and race experience.

Clodd says: "Instinct is the higher form of reflex
action. The salmon migrates from sea to river; the
bird makes its nest or migrates from one zone to an-
other by an unvarying route, even leaving its young

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 91

behind to perish; the bee builds its six-sided cell; the
spider spins its web; the chick breaks its way through
the shell, balances itself, and picks up grains of corn;
the newborn babe sucks its mother^s breast — all in
virtue of like acts on the part of their ancestors, which,
arising in the needs of the creature, and gradually be-
coming automatic, have not varied during long ages,
the tendency to repeat them being transmitted within
the germ from which insect, fish, bird, and man have
severally sprung/^

Schneider says: "It is a fact that men, especially
in childhood, fear to go into a dark cavern, or a gloomy
wood. This feeling of fear arises, to be sure, partly
from the fact that we easily suspect that dangerous
beasts may lurk in these localities — a suspicion due to
stories we have heard and read. But, on the other
hand, it is quite sure that this fear at a certain per-
ception is also directly inherited. Children who have
been carefully guarded from all ghost stories are never-
theless terrified and cry if led into a dark place, espe-
cially if sounds are made there. Even an adult can
easily observe that an uncomfortable timidity steals
over him in a lonely wood at night, although he may
have the fixed conviction that not the slightest danger
is near. This feeling of fear occurs in many men even
in their own houses after dark, although it is much

92 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

stronger in a dark cavern or forest. The fact of such
instinctive fear is easily explicable when we consider
that our savage ancestors through immemorable genera-
tions were accustomed to meet with dangerous beasts
in caverns^ especially bears, and were for the most part
attacked by such beasts during the night and in the
woods, and that thus an inseparable association between
the perceptions of darkness, caverns, woods, and fear
took place, and was inherited/^

James says: /^Nothing is commoner than the re-
mark that man differs from lower creatures by the
almost total absence of instincts, and the assumption
of their work in him by reason. * * * We may confi-
dently say that however uncertain man's reactions upon
his environment may sometimes seem in comparison
with those of the lower mammals, the uncertainty is
probably not due to their possession of any principles
of action which he lacks. On the contrary, man pos-
sesses all the impulses that they have, and a great many
more besides, * * * High places cause fear of a pe-
culiarly sickening sort, though here again individuals
differ. The utterly blind instinctive character of the
motor impulses here is shown by the fact that they are
almost always entirely unreasonable, but that reason is
powerless to suppress them. * * * Certain ideas of
supernatural agency, associated with real circumstances,

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 93

produce a peculiar kind of horror. This horror is prob-
ably explicable as the result of a combination of simple
horrors. To bring the ghostly terror to its maximum,
many unusual elements of the dreadful must combine,
such as loneliness, darkness, inexplicable sounds, espe-
cially of a dismal character, moving pictures half dis-
cerned (or, if discerned, of dreadful aspect), and a
vertiginous baffling of the expectation. * * * In view
of the fact that cadaveric, reptilian, and underground
horrors play so specific and constant a part in many
nightmares and forms of delirium, it seems not alto-
gether unwise to ask whether these forms of dreadful
circumstance may not at a former period have been
more normal objects of the environment than now.
The evolutionist ought to have no difficulty in explain-
ing these terrors, and the scenery that provokes them,
as relapses into the consciousness of the cave men, a
consciousness usually overlaid in us by experiences of a
more recent date.'^

Instinctive emotion manifests as an impulse arising
from the dim recesses of the feeling or emotional na-
ture— an incentive toward a dimly conscious end. It
differs from the almost purely automatic nature of
certain forms of reflex process, for its beginning is a
feeling arising from the subconscious regions, which
strives to excite an activity of conscious volition. The

94 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT,

feeling is from fhe subconscious, but the activity is
conscious. The end may not be perceived in conscious-
ness, or at least is but dimly perceived, but the action
leading to the end is in full consciousness. Instinct
is seen to have its origin in the past experiences of the
race, transmitted by heredity and preserved in the race
memory. It has for its object the preservation of the
individual and of the species. Its end is often some-
thing far removed in time from the moment, or the
welfare of the species rather than that of the individual ;
for instance, the caterpillar providing for its future
states, or the bird building its nest, or the bees building
cells and providing hone)^ for their successors, for very
few bees live to partake of the honey which they have
gathered and stored — they are animated by ^^the spirit
of the hive.*^

The most elementary forms of the instinctive emo-
tions are those which have to do with the preservation
of the individual, his comfort, and personal physical
welfare. This class of emotions comprises what are
generally known as purely "selfish'^ feelings, having
little or no concern for the welfare of others. In this
class we find the emotional feelings which have to do
with the satisfaction of hunger and thirst, the securing
of comfortable quarters and warm clothing, and the
spirit of combat and strife arising from the desire to

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 95

obtain these. These elemental feelings had their birth
early in the history of life, and indeed life itself de-
pended very materially upon them for its preservation
and continuance. It was necessary for the primitive
living thing to be ^^selfish/^ When man appeared, only
those survived who manifested these feelings strongly;
the others were pushed to the wall and perished. Even
in our civilization the man below the average in this
class of feelings will find it difficult to survive.

CHAPTER XIII.
The Passions^

A RISING from the most elemental instinctive
/ \ emotions^ we find what may be termed "the
*^ "^ passions/^ By the term "passion'^ is meant
those strong feelings in which the elemental selfish
instincts are manifested in relation to other persons,
either in the phase of attraction or repulsion. In this
class we find the elementary phases of love, and the
feelings of hate, anger, jealousy, revenge, etc. This
class of emotions usually manifests violently, as com-
pared with the other emotions. The passions generally
arise from self-preservation^ race preservation and re-
production, self-interest, self-aggrandizement, etc., and
may be regarded as a more complex phase of the ele-
mental instinctive emotions. The elemental instinctive
emotions of self-preservation and self-comfort cause the
individual to experience and manifest the passional
emotions of desire for combat, anger, hate, revenge, etc.,
Avhile the instinctive emotions leading to reproduction
and continuance of the race give rise to the passional
emotions of sexual love, jealousy, etc. The desire to
attract the other sex increases ambition, vanity, love of
display, and other feelings.

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 97

It is only when this class of emotions blends with the
higher emotions that the passions become purified and
refined. But it must not be forgotten that these emo-
tions were very necessary for the welfare of the race
in the early stage of its evolution, and that they still
play an active part in human life, under the greater or
less restraint imposed by civilized society. Nor should
it be forgotten that from these emotions have evolved
the highest love of one human being for another. From
instinctive sexual love and the ^^racial instinct^^ have
developed the higher affection of man for woman, and
woman for man, in all their beautiful manifestations —
and the love of the parent for the child, and the love
of the child for the parent. The first manifestation
of altruism arises in the love of the living creature for
its mate, and in the love of the parents for their off-
spring. In certain forms of life where the association
of the sexes is merely for the moment, and is not fol-
lowed by protection, mutual aid, and companionship,
there is found an absence of mutual affection of any
kind, the only feeling being an elemental reproductive
instinct bringing the male and female together for the
moment — an almost purely reflex activity. In the same
way, in the cases of certain animals (the rattlesnake,
for instance) in which the young are able to protect
themselves from birth, there is seen a total absence of

98 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

parental affection or the return thereof. Human love
between the sexes, in its higher and lower degrees, is
a natural evolution from passional emotion of a low
order, due to the growth of social, ethical, moral, and
aesthetic emotion arising from the necessities of the
increasing complexity and development of human life.
The simpler forms of passional emotion are almost
entirely instinctive in their manifestation. Indeed, in
many cases, there appears to be but little more than
a high form of reflex nervous action. The following
words of William James give us an interesting view of
this fact of life: ^^The cat runs after the mouse, runs
or shows fight before the dog, avoids falling from walls
and trees, shuns fire and water, not because he has any
notion either of life or of death or of self-preservation.
He acts in each case separately and simply because he
cannot help it; being so framed that when that par-
ticular running thing called a mouse appears in his
field of vision, he must pursue; that when that partic-
ular barking and obstreperous thing called a dog ap-
pears there, he must retire if at a distance, and scratch
if close by; that he must withdraw his feet from water,
and his face from flame, etc. * * * Now, why do the
various animals do what seem to us such strange things
in the presence of such outlandish stimuli? Why does
the hen, for instance, submit herself to the tedium of

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 99

incubating such a fearfully uninteresting set of objects
as a nestful of eggs, unless she have some sort of pro-
phetic inkling of the result? The only answer is ad
hominem. We can only interpret the instinct of brutes
by what we know of instincts in ourselves. Why do
men always lie down, when they can, on soft beds rather
than on soft floors? Why do they sit around a stove
on a cold day? Why, in a room, do they place them-
selves, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, with their
faces toward its middle rather than to the wall? Why
does the maiden interest the youth so much that every-
thing about her seems more important and significant
than anything else in the world? Nothing more can
be said than that these are human ways, and that every
creature likes its own ways, and takes to following them
as a matter of course. Science may come and consider
these ways, and find that most of them are useful. But
it is not for the sake of their utility that they are
followed, but because at the moment of following them
we feel that it is the only appropriate and natural thing
to do. Not one man in a million, when taking his
dinner, ever thinks of its utility. He eats because the
food tastes good, and makes him want more. If you
should ask him why he wants to eat more of what tastes
like that, instead of revering you as a philosopher he
will probably laugh at you for a fool.^^

100 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

James continues : ^^t takes, in short, what Berkeley
called a mind debauched by learning to carry the proc-
ess of making the natural seem strange, so far as to
ask the why of any instinctive human act. To the
metaphysician alone can such questions arise as : Why
do we smile when pleased and not scowl? Why are we
unable to talk to a crowd as to a single friend? Why
does a particular maiden turn our wits upside down?
The common man can only say, 'Of course we smile,
of course our heart palpitates at the sight of the crowd,
of course we love the maiden — that beautiful soul clad
in that perfect form, so palpably and flagrantly made
from all eternity to be loved !' And so, probably, does
each animal feel about the particular things it tends to
do in the presence of particular objects. They, too,
are a priori syntheses. To the lion it is the lioness
which is made to be loved ; to the bear, the she bear. To
the broody hen the notion would seem monstrous that
there should be a creature in the world to whom a nest-
ful of eggs was not the utterly fascinating, precious,
and never-to-be-too-much-sat-upon object which it is to
her. Thus we may be sure that however mysterious
some animals' instincts may appear to us, our instincts
will appear no less mysterious to them. And we may
conclude that, to the animal which obeys it, every im-
pulse and every step of that instinct shines with its own

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 101

sufficient light, and seems at the moment the only ex-
ternally right and proper thing to do. It may be done
for its own sake exclusively."

One has very little need, as a rule, to develop the
passional emotions. Instinct has taken pretty good
care that we shall have our share of this class of feel-
ings. But there is a need to train, restrain, govern,
and control these emotions, for the conditions which
brought about their original being have changed. Our
social conventions require that we should subordinate
these passional feelings, to some extent at least. Soci-
ety insists that we must restrict our love impulses to
certain limits and to certain quarters, and that we sub-
due our anger and hate, except toward the enemies of
our land, the disturbers of public peace, and the men-
acers of the social conventions of our time and land.
The public welfare requires that we inhibit our fighting
impulses, except in cases of self-defense or war. Public
policy requires that we keep our ambitions within rea-
sonable limits, which limits change from time to time,
of course. In short, society has stepped in and insisted
that man, as a social being, must not only acquire a
social conscience but must also develop sociable emo-
tions and inhibit his unsociable ones. The evolution
of man's nature has caused him unconsciously to modify
his elemental, instinctive, passional emotions, and sub-

103 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

ordinate them to the dictates of social, ethical, moral,
and aesthetic feelings and ideals, and to intellectual con-
siderations. Even the original elemental instincts of
the lower animals have been modified by reason of the
social requirements of the pack, herd, or drove, until
the modified instinct is now the ruling force.

The general principles of emotional control, restraint^,
and mastery, as given in a preceding chapter, are ap-
plicable to the particular class of emotions now under
consideration here.

(1) By refraining from the physical
expression, one may at least partially in-
hibit the emotion.

(2) By refusing to create the habit,
one may more easily manifest control.

(3) By refusing to dwell upon the idea
or mental picture of the exciting object,
one may lessen the stimulus.

(4) By cultivating the opposite class
of emotions, one may inhibit any class of
feeling.

(5) And, finally, by acquiring a con-
trol of the attention, by means of the will,
one has the reins firmly in hand, and may
drive or hold back the steeds of passion
as he wills.

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 103

The passions are like fiery horses, useful if well
under control, but most dangerous if the control is lost.
The ego is the driver, the will his hands, attention the
reins, habit the bit, and the passions the horses. To
drive the chariot of life under social conditions, the ego
must have strong hands (will) to tighten or loosen the
reins of attention. He must also employ a well designed
and shaped bit of habit. Without strong hands, good
reins, and well-adjusted bit, the fiery steeds of passion
may gain control and, running away, dash the chariot
and its driver over the precipice and on to the jagged
rocks below.

CHAPTER XIV.
The Social dnotions.

A S man became a social animal he developed new
/ \ traits of character, new habits of action,
-^ -^ new ideals, new customs, and consequently nev/
emotions. Emotions long entertained and long mani-
fested by the race become more or less instinctive, and
are passed along in the form of either (a) inherited
stimulus akin to, but lesser in degree and force than, the
more elemental emotions; or (6) of inherited tendency
to manifest the acquired emotional feeling upon the
presentation of sufficiently strong stimuli. Hence arises
that which we have called "the social emotions/^

Under the classification of "the social emotions'^ are
those acquired tendencies of action and feeling of the
race which are more or less altruistic, and are con-
cerned with the welfare of others and one's duties and
obligations toward society and our fellow men. In this
class are found the emotions which impel us to perform
what we consider or feel to be our duty toward our
neighbors, and our obligations and duty toward the
state, as expressed in its laws, the customs of men of
our country, or the ideals of the community. In an-

YOUB MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 105

other phase it manifests as sympathy, fellow feeling,
and ^^kindness'^ in general. In its first phase we find
civic virtue, law-abiding inclination, honesty, ^^sqiiare
dealing,^^ and patriotism; in its second phase we find
sympathy for others, charity, mutual aid, the allevia-
tion of poverty and suffering, the erection of asylums
for orphans and the aged, hospitals for the sick, and
the formation of societies for general charitable work.

In many cases we find the social, ethical, and moral
emotions closely allied with religious emotion, and by
many these are supposed to be practically identical, but
there is a vast difference in spite of their frequent asso-
ciation. For instance, we find many persons of high
civic virtue, of exalted moral ideals, and manifesting
ethical qualities of the most advanced type, who are
lacking in the ordinary religious feelings. On the
other hand, we too frequently find persons professing
great religious zeal, and apparently experiencing the
most intense religious emotional feeling, who are de-
ficient in social, civic, ethical, and moral qualities, in
the best sense of these terms. The aim of all religion
worthy of the name, however, is to encourage ethical
and moral as well as religious emotions.

We must here make the distinction between those
manifesting the actions termed ethical and moral "be-
cause they feel that way, and those who merely comply

106 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

with the conventionai requirements because they fear
the consequences of their violation. The first class have
the true social, ethical, and moral feelings, tastes, ideals,
and inclinations; while the second manifest merely the
elementary feelings of self-preservation and selfish pru-
dence. The first class are ^^good'' because they feel
that way and find it natural to be so; while the others
are ^^good" merely because they have to be or be pun-
ished by legal penalty or public opinion, loss of prestige,
loss of financial support, etc.

The social, moral, and ethical emotions are believed
to have arisen in the race by reason of the association
of individuals in communities and the rise of the neces-
sity for mutual aid and forbearance. Even many of the
species of the lower animals have social, moral, or eth-
ical codes of their own, based on the experience of the
species or family, infractions of which they punish
severely. In the same way sympathy and the altruistic
feelings are supposed to have arisen. The community
of interest and understanding in the tribe, family, or
clan brought not only the feeling of natural defense
and protection but also the finer, inner sympathetic
feeling of the pains and sufferings of their associates.
This, in the progress of the race, has developed into
broader and more complex ideals and feelings.

Theology explains the moral feelings as resulting

YOUR MIND AND EOW TO USE IT. 107

from conscience, which it holds to be a special faculty
of the mind, or soul, divinely given. Science, while
admitting the existence of the state of feelings which
we call ^^conscience,^^ denies its supernatural origin, and
ascribes it to the result of evolution, heredity, experi-
ence, education, and suggestion. Conscience, according
to science, is a compound of intellectual and emotional
states. Conscience is not an invariable or infallible
guide, but depends entirely upon the heredity, educa-
tion, experience, and environment of the individual.
It accompanies the moral and ethical codes of the race,
which vary with time and with country. Actions which
were thought right a century ago are condemned now;
likewise, things condemned a century ago are thought
right now. What is commended in Turkey is con-
demned in England, and vice versa. Moral tastes and
ideals, like aesthetic ones, vary with time and country.
There is no absolute code which has been always true,
in all places. There is an evolution in the ideals of
morals and ethics as in everything else, and "conscience'^
and the moral and ethical emotions accompany the
changing ideals.

Many of the moral and ethical principles originally
arose from necessity or utilitj^, but have since developed
into natural, spontaneous feeling on the part of the
race. It is held that the race is rapidly developing a

108 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

"'^social conscience" which will cause the wiping out of
many social conditions v/hich are now the disgrace of
civilization. It is predicted that in time the race will
look back upon the existence of poverty in our civiliza-
tion as our generation now looks back upon the existence
of slavery^ imprisonment for debt, capital punishment
for the theft of a loaf of bread, the killing of prisoners
of war, etc. It is thought that, in time, wars of con-
quest will be deemed as utterly immoral as to-day is
regarded the murder of a body of men by a band of
pirates or bandits. In the same way the economic slav-
ery of to-day will be seen as immoral as now seems the
physical slavery of the past. In not far distant time
it will seem incredible that society could have ever
allowed one of its members to die of hunger in the
streets, or of poverty and inattention in the sick room
of the hovel. Not only will the ideals and feelings of
ethical and moral responsibility change and evolve, but
the feelings of personal sympathy will evolve in accord-
ance therewith. At least such is the dream and proph-
ecy of some of the world's greatest thinkers.

The social, ethical, and moral emotions may be devel-
oped by a study of the evolution and meaning of society
on the one hand, and the perception of the condition of
the lives of less fortunate individuals on the other. The
first will awaken new ideas of the history and real

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT, 109

meaning of social association and mutual intercourse,
and will develop a new sense of responsibility, duty,
and civic and social pride. The second will awaken
understanding and sympathy, and a desire to do what
one can to help those who are ^^the under dog,^^ and
also to bring about a better state of affairs in general.
The study of history and civilization, of sociology and
civics, will do much in the first direction. The study
of human-kind, and its life problems and condition,
will do the same in the second case. In both cases
there will be awakened a new sense of ^^right and
wrong'^ — a new conception of ^^ought and ought not^^ —
regarding one's relations to the race, society, and his
fellow beings.

Let no one deceive himself or herself by the smug
assumption that the race has entirely emerged from
barbarism and is now on the top wave of civilization.
The truth, as known to all careful and conscientious
thinkers, is that we are but half civilized, if, indeed,
that much. Many of our customs and conventions are
those of a half-barbarous people. Our ideals are low,
our customs often vile. We lack not only high ideals
but in many cases we show a lack of sanity in our
social conventions. But evolution is moving us slowly
ahead. A better day is dawning. The signs are in the
air, to be seen by all thoughtful men. Civilization is

no YOUB MIND AND HOW TO USE IT,

climbing the ladder, aided by the evolution of the
social, ethical, and moral emotions and the development
of the intellect.

In connection with this phase of the emotions, we
invite the student to consider the following excellent
words of Professor Davidson in his ^^History of Greek
Education": ^^It is not enough for a man to under-
stand the conditions of rational life in his own time.
He must likewise love these conditions and hate what-
ever leads to life of an opposite kind. This is only
another way of saying that he must love the good and
hate the evil; for the good is simply what conduces to
rational or moral life, and the evil simply what leads
away from it. It is perfectly obvious, as soon as it is
pointed out, that all immoral life is due to a false
distribution of affection, which again is often, though
by no means always, due to a want of intellectual cul-
tivation. He that attributes to anything a value greater
or less than it really possesses, in the order of things,
has already placed himself in a false relation to it, and
will certainly, when he comes to act with reference to
it, act immorally .^^

CHAPTER XV.
The Religious Amotions.

BY ^^the religious emotions'' is meant that class
of emotional feeling arising from the faith and
belief in, or consciousness of the presence of,
supernatural beings, powers, entities, or forces. This
form of emotion is regarded as distinct from the ethical
and moral emotions, although frequently found in con-
nection therewith. Likewise, it is independent of any-
special form of intellectual belief, for it is far more
fundamental and often exists without creed, philosophy,
or stated belief, the only manifestation in such cases
being a ^^feeling'' of the existence of supernatural be-
ings, forces, and powers to which man has a relation
and to which he owes obedience. To those who may
think that this is too narrow a conception of religious
emotion we refer the following definition of ^^religion''
from the dictionaries: ^^The acts or feelings which
result from the belief of a god, or gods, having superior
control over matter, life, or destiny. Eeligion is sub-
jective, designating the feelings and acts of men which
relate to God; theology is objective, denoting the science
which investigates the existence, laws, and attributes

112 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT,

of God;'^ or (objectively) ^^the outer form and embodi-
ment which the inward spirit of a true or a false devo-
tion assumes/' (subjectively) ^^the feeling of veneration
with which the worshiper regards the Being he adores.'^

Darwin^ in his *^^Descent of Man/' says that the
feeling of religious devotion is a highly complex one,
consisting of love, complete submission to an exalted
and mysterious superior, a strong sense of dependence,
fear, reverence, gratitude, hope for the future, and
perhaps other elements. He is of the opinion that no
man can experience so complex an emotion until ad-
vanced in his intellectual and moral faculties to at least
a moderately high level. The authorities generally
agree with Darwin, although the more recent study of
the history of religion has shown that religious feeling
has a far more primitive origin than that indicated by
Darwin.

It is true that the lower animals are not deemed
capable of anything approaching religious feeling, un-
less there is a feeling approaching it in the attitude of
the dog and horse and other domestic animals toward
their masters. But man, as soon as he is able to
attribute natural phenomena to a supernatural cause
and power, manifests a crude religious feeling and
emotion. He begins by believing in, fearing, and wor-
shiping natural forces and objects, such as the sun, the

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 113

moon, the wind, thunder and lightning, the ocean, riv-
ers, mountains, etc. It is claimed that there is no
natural object that has not been deified and worshiped
by some people at some time in the history of the race.
Later, man acquired the anthropomorphic conception
of deities and created many gods in his own image,
endowing them with his own attributes, qualities, and
characteristics. The mental characteristics and morals
of a people can always be ascertained by a knowledge
of the average conception of deity held by them. Poly-
theism, or the belief in many gods, was succeeded by
monotheism, or belief in one god.

Monotheism ranges from the crudest conception of
a manlike god to the highest conception of a spiritual
Being transcending all human qualities, attributes, or
characteristics. Man began by believing in many god
things, then in many god persons, then in a one god-
person, then in one God who is a spirit, then in One
Universal Spirit which is God. It is a far cry from the
savage, manlike god of old to the conception of the
Universal Spirit of the ^^God-drunken philosopher,^^
Spinoza. The extreme of religious belief is that which
holds that ^^there is nothing but God — all else is illu-
sion,^' of pantheistic idealism. Buddhism (at least in
its original form) discarded the idea of a Supreme
Being, and held that Ultimate Reality is but Universal

114 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

Law; hence the accusation that Buddhism is an ^^athe-
istic religion/^ although it is one of the world's greatest
religions^ having over 400^000,000 followers.

But the beliefs of the religious person may he con-
sidered as resulting from intellectual processes; his
religious feelings and emotions arise from another part
of his mental being. It is the testimony of the author-
ities of all religions that religious conviction is an inner
experience rather than an intellectual conception. The
emotional element is always active in religious mani-
festations everywhere. The purely intellectual religion
is naught but a philosophy. Eeligion without feeling
and emotion is an anomaly. In all true religion there
exists a feeling of inner assurance and faith, love, awe,
dependence, submission, reverence, gratitude, hope, and
perhaps fear. The emotional element must always be
present, not necessarily in the form of emotional excess,
as in the case of revival hysteria or the dance of the
whirling dervishes, but at least in the form of the calm,
fervent feeling of ^^that peace which passeth under-
standing.^' When religion departs from the emotional
phase it becomes merely a ^"^school of philosophy,^' or an
^^ethical culture society.''

The student must not lose sight of the uplifting
influence of true religious emotion by reason of his
knowledge of its lowly origin. Like the lotus, which

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO U8E IT. 115

has its roots in the slimy^ filthy mud of the river, and
its stem in the muddy, stagnant, and foul waters thereof,
but its beautiful flower unfolded in the clear air and
facing the sun, so is religious feeling responsible for
some of the most beautiful and uplifting ideals and
actions of the race. If its origin and history contain
much that is not consistent with the highest ideals of
the race to-day, it is not the fault of religion but of
the race itself. Eeligion, like all else in the universal
manifestation, is under the laws of evolution, growth,
and development. What the religion of the future may
be, we know not. But the prophets of the race are
dreaming visions of a religion as much higher than that
of to-day as the latter is higher than the crude fetich-
ism of the savage.

The following quotation from John Fiske's ^^Through
Nature to God'' is appropriate in this place. Fiske
says: ^^My aim is to show that ^that other influence,'
that inward conviction, the craving for a final cause,
the theistic assumption, is itself one of the master facts
of the universe, and as much entitled to respect as any
fact in physical nature can possibly be. The argument
flashed upon me about ten years ago while reading
Herbert Spencer's controversy with Frederic Harrison
concerning the nature and reality of religion. Because
Spencer derived historically the greater part of modern

116 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

belief in an Unseen World from the savage's primeval
world of dreams and ghosts, some of his critics main-
tained that logical consistency required him to dismiss
the modern belief as utterly false; otherwise he would
be guilty of seeking to evolve truth from falsehood.
^By no means/ replied Spencer. ^Contrariwise, the ul-
timate form of the religious consciousness is the final
development of a consciousness which at the outset
contained a germ of truth obscured by multitudinous
errors.^ '^ Fiske, in this connection, quotes the Tenny-
sonian question: —

^^ ^Who forged that other influence,
That heat of inward evidence.
By which he doubts against the sense ?' ^'

The religious emotions may be developed by allowing
the mind to dwell upon the Power underlying the
universe of fleeting, changing forms; by reading prose
and poetry in which an appeal is made to the religious
instinct; by listening to music which awakens the emo-
tion of reverence and awe; and, finally, by meditating
upon the inner spirit immanent in every living being.
As an old Hindu sage once said: ^^There are many
paths by which men arrive at a knowledge of the pres-
ence of God, but there is but one goal and destination.''

CHAPTER XVI.

The Aesthetic Cmotions.

BY ^^the aesthetic emotions'^ is meant those emo-
tional feelings which are concerned with the
perception of beauty or taste, and by reason of
which we ^^like'^ or "dislike'' certain perceptions of
sensory impressions. In order to get a clearer idea, let
us consider what is meant by "beauty'^ and "taste/^

"Beauty'^ is defined as "that quality or assemblage
of qualities in an object which gives the eye or the ear
intense pleasure; or that characteristic in an object
which gratifies the intellect or moral feeling.'^ "Taste"
(in this sense of the term) is defined as "nice percep-
tion, or the power of perceiving and relishing excellence
in human performances; the power of appreciating the
finer qualities of art; the faculty of discerning beauty,
order, congruity, proportion, symmetry, or whatever
constitutes excellence, particularly in the fine arts or
literature; the faculty of the mind by which we both
perceive and enjoy whatever is beautiful or sublime
in the works of nature and art. The possession of
taste insures grace and beauty in the works of an artist,
and the avoidance of all that is low or mean. It is as

118 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

often the result of an innate sense of beauty or pro-
priety as of art education, and no genius can com-
pensate for the want of it. * * * Tastes differ so much
among individuals, nations, or in different ages and
conditions of civilization that it is utterly impossible
to set up a standard of taste applicable to all men and
to all stages in the evolution of society/^

The aesthetic sense, feeling, and emotion are products
of the later stages of the evolution of the mind of man.
Their roots, however, may be seen in the crude attempts
at decoration and adornment in the savage, and still
further back in the tendency of certain birds to adorn
their nests or ^'^bowers.^^ Moreover, some sense of beauty
must exist in the lower animals, which are influenced
thereby in the selection of their mates, the bright plum-
age of the birds, and the coloring of the insects and
higher animals evidencing the existence of at least a
primitive aesthetic sense. Herbert Spencer says that
one characteristic of the aesthetic feelings is that they
are separated from the functions vitally requisite and
necessary to sustain life, and it is not until the latter
are reasonably well satisfied that the former begin to
manifest in force.

The authorities hold that the basic element concerned
in the manifestation of the aesthetic emotional feeling
is the sensory element, which consists of the pleasure

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 119

arising from the perception of objects of vision or hear-
ing which are deemed beautiful. There is a certain
nervous satisfaction which arises from the perception
of the sensation of the sight of a beautiful thing, or of
the hearing of beautiful sound. Just why certain sights
prove agreeable and others disagreeable, or certain
sounds pleasant and others unpleasant, is very difficult
to determine. Association and habit may have some-
thing to do with the beauty of sight object, and there
may be natural harmony of vibration in colors as there
is in sound. In the case of sounds there is undoubtedly
a natural harmony between the vibrations of certain
notes of the scale and inharmony between others. Some
have held that the secret of the enjoyment of music is
found in the natural appreciation of rhythm, as rhythm
is a cosmic manifestation evident in everything from
great to small. But these theories do not account for
the differences existing in the tastes regarding color
and music manifested by different individuals, races,
and classes of people.

Grant Allen says: "The vulgar are pleased with
great masses of color, especially red, orange, and purple,
which give their coarse, nervous organization the requi-
site stimulus. The refined, with nerves of less caliber,
but greater discriminativeness, require delicate com-
binations of complementaries and prefer neutral tints

120 YOUn MIND AND BOW TO USE IT.

to the glare of the primary hues. Children and savages
love to dress in all the colors of the rainbow/^ In the
same way persons of certain types of taste are pleased
with ^^rag time'' and cheap^ rollicking songs or dances,
while others shudder at these and find delight in the
classic productions of the great composers.

There is also the intellectual element to be reckoned
with in the aesthetic emotions. The intellect must dis-
cover the beauty in certain objects before the emotion is
aroused by the perception. Halleck says : "Every time
the mind discerns unity amid variety, order, rhythm,
proportion, or symmetry, an aesthetic emotion arises.
* * * The traveler with a trained intellect will see far
more beauty than an ignorant one. In looking at a
cathedral, a large part of the aesthetic enjoyment comes
from tracing out the symmetry, from comparing part
with part. Not until this process is complete will the
full beauty of the structure as a whole be perceived.
If the traveler knows something of mediaeval architec-
ture before starting on his European trip, he will see
far more beauty. The opposite of the aesthetic, which
we call the ugly, is the unsymmetrical, the disorderly —
that in which we' can discover no rhythm, plan, or
beauty.''

The element of associative suggestion also enters into
the manifestation of aesthetic emotional feeling. The

YOVB MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 121

mind accepts the suggestion of the beauty of certain
styles of art, or the excellence of certain classes of music.
There are fashions in art and music, as in clothes, and
what is thought beautiful to-day may be deemed hide-
ous to-morrow. This is not entirely due to the evolu-
tion of taste, for in many cases the old fashions are
revived and again deemed beautiful. There is, more-
over, the effect of the association of the object of emo-
tion with certain events or persons. This association
renders the thing popular, and therefore agreeable and
beautiful for the time being. The suggestion in a story
will often cause the beauty of a certain scene, or the
harmony of a certain piece of music, to dawn upon
thousands of persons. Some noted person sets the seal
of approval upon a certain picture or musical composi-
tion and lo ! the multitude calls it beautiful. It must
not be supposed, however, that the crowd always coun-
terfeits this sense of beauty and excellence which has
been suggested to it. On the contrary, genuine aesthetic
feeling often results from the discovery so made.

There is style and fashion in the use of words, result-
ing from fashion, which gives rise to aesthetic feelings
regarding them. These feelings do" not arise from the
consideration of the nature of the object expressed by
the word ; of two words designating the same thing, one
causes disgust and the other at least passive tolerance.

123 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

For instance, in speaking of the sensible moisture which
is emitted from the pores of the skin, we may use either
of the respective terms ^^sweat'^ or ^^perspiration/^ Both
mean the same thing, and have an equally respectable
origin. But to many persons the word ^Weaf^ causes
unpleasant aesthetic emotion, while the word ^^perspira-
tion'^ is accepted without remonstrance. Some persons
abhor the term ^Sdctuals," while ^^viands'' or "food'^
are accepted without protest. There is often an un-
pleasant, low, vulgar association connected with some
words which accounts for the disfavor with which they
are received, and which association is absent from the
more ^^polite" terms employed to indicate the same
thing. But in other cases there is nothing but the
simple suggestion of fashion and style to account for
the aesthetic acceptance or rejection.

It is possible that some psychologist of the future will
establish the truth of the theory now tentatively ad-
vanced by a few investigators, namely, that taste and
the sense of beauty depend almost entirely upon the
element of suggestion, manifested as association, influ-
ence of authority, habit, fashion, imitation, etc. It is
known that the emotional nature is peculiarly liable to
suggestion, and that tastes may be created or destroyed
by repeated suggestion under the most favorable cir-
cumstances. It is thought likely that if we could trace

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 123

back to its roots every emotion of taste, we would find
it arising from some associative, suggestive influence
connected with another and more elemental class of
emotions.

Eegarding the fact that there is no universal stand-
ard of taste or beauty, Halleck says: ^^It has been
said that aesthetics cannot be treated in a scientific way
because there is no standard of taste. ^De gustibus non
est disputandumf (^there is no disputing about tastes')
is an old proverb. Of two equally intelligent persons,
the one may like a certain book, the other dislike it.
* * * While it is true that the standard of taste is a
varying one within certain limits, it is no more so than
that of morals. As men's nervous systems, education,
and associations differ, we may scientifically conclude
that their tastes must differ. The greater the uniform-
ity in the factors the less does the product vary. On
the other hand, within certain limits, the standard of
sesthetics is relatively uniform. It is fixed by the ma-
jority of intelligent people of any age and country. To
estimate the standard by which to judge of the correct-
ness of language or of the literary taste of any era, we
examine the conversations of the best speakers, the
works of the standard writers.^'

The aesthetic emotions may be developed and culti-
vated by exercise and practice, and particularly by asso-

124 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

elation and familiarity with beautiful things, and with
those who have ^^good taste/' Appreciation of beauty
is more or less contagious, up to a certain point of
development, at least, and if one wishes to recognize,
understand, and appreciate beauty, he should go where
beauty is, and where its votaries are gathered. The
study of standard works of art, or objects of nature, or
the best productions of the composers of music, will do
much to develop and unfold one's higher aesthetic feel-
ings and understanding.

It is claimed by some of the best authorities that to
develop the finer and higher aesthetic feelings and un-
derstanding we must learn to find beauty and excellence
in things removed from ourselves or our selfish inter-
ests. The narrow, selfish emotions kill the aesthetic
feelings — the two cannot exist together. The person
whose thoughts are centered on himself or herself very
rarely finds beauty or excellence in works of art or
music. Grant Allen well sums up the subject in the
following words : ''Oood taste is the progressive product
of progressing fineness and discrimination in the nerves,
educated attention, high and 7iohle emotional constitu-
tion, and increasing intellectual faculties/^

CHAPTER XVII.

The Intellectual Amotions.

BY ^^the intellectual emotions'^ is meant that class
of emotional feeling resulting from the pres-
ence of objects of intellectual interest. This
class of emotions depends for its satisfaction upon the
exercise of the intellectual faculties, from the most
simple to the most complex, and including perception,
memory, imagination, reason, judgment, and all the
logical faculties. Those who are accustomed to employ-
ing the mind through voluntary attention, particularly
in the direction of creative ideation or constructive
imagination, experience these emotions to a greater or
less degree.

The exercise of perception, if we are skilled therein,
gives us a pleasurable feeling, and if we succeed in mak-
ing an interesting or important discovery by reason
thereof, we experience a strong degree of emotional
satisfaction. Likewise, we experience agreeable feelings
when we are able to remember distinctly something
which might well have been forgotten, or when we suc-
ceed in recalling something which had escaped our
memory for the moment. In the same way the exercise

126 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

of the imagination is a source of great pleasure in many
cases in the direction of writing, planning, inventing,
or other creative processes, or even in the building of
air castles. The exercise of the logical faculties gives
great pleasure to those in whom these faculties are well
developed.

Halleck well says: ^There was probably not a hap-
pier moment in Newton^s life than when he had suc-
ceeded in demonstrating that the same power which
caused the apple to fall held the moon and the planets
in their orbits. When Watts discovered that steam
might be harnessed like a horse, when an inventor suc-
ceeds in perfecting a labor-lightening device, whenever
an obscurity is cleared away, the reason for a thing
understood, and a baffling instance brought under a
general law, intellectual emotion results.^'

The pleasurable feelings we experience upon the read-
ing of a good book, or the discovery of real poetry, are
forms of intellectual emotion. The same class of emo-
tional feeling is aroused when we witness a good play.
Among other instances of this class we mention the
perception of clever work of any kind, intricate machin-
ery, ingenious devices, helpful improvements, or other
works of man which indicate the existence of thought
and inventive ability in the designer or builder. To
appreciate mental work of this kind we must bring a

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 127

mind developed along the same or similar lines. It has
well been said that before one can take away anything
from a book he must bring something to it. It takes
mentality to recognize and appreciate mentality or the
work of mentality.

The study of scientific subjects is a source of great
pleasure to those who are inclined to such pursuits.
To the scientific mind the study of the latest work on
the favorite branch gives a joy which nothing else is
capable of arousing. To the philosopher the works of
other philosophers of the same school give intense satis-
faction.

It is claimed that the sense of humor and wit is an
intellectual emotion, for it depends upon the detection
of the ludicrous features of a happening. Certain psy-
chologists have held that the distinctive element of
humor is the feeling attendant upon the perception of
incongruity ; while that of wit is the feeling of superior-
ity on the part of the witty person, and the correspond-
ing chagrin of the object of his wit. It would seem,
however, that the appreciation of wit must depend upon
the intellectual perception of cleverness of expression
and the pleasure resulting from the discovery thereof,
and that the feeling of humor is aroused principally by
reason of the incongruous element; the feeling of self-
satisfaction as contrasted with the discomfiture of the

128 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

other person belongs to the more selfish emotions. An
authority says: ^^Hnmor is a mental faculty which
tends to discover incongruous resemblances between
things which essentially differ^ or essential differences
between things put forth as the same, the result being
internal mirth or an outburst of laughter. Wit does
so likewise, but the two are different. Humor has deep
human sympathy, and loves men while raising a laugh
against their weaknesses. Wit is deficient in sympathy,
and there is often a sting in its ridicule. Somewhat
contemptuous of mankind, it has not the patience to
study tliem thoroughly, but must content itself with
noting superficial resemblances or differences. Humor
is patient and keenly observant, and penetrates beneath
the surface ; while, therefore, the sallies of wit are often
one-sided and unfair, those of humor are, as a rule, just
and wise.^^

The development and cultivation of the intellectual
emotions depend, of course, upon education, training,
exercise, and practice. The cultivation of the intellect
(which has been referred to, in part, in the previous
parts of this book, and which will be again considered
in the chapters devoted to the intellect) results in the
development and cultivation of the emotions accom-
panying intellectual effort. In a general way, however,
it may be said that the reading of the best works of

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 139

fiction, science, and philosophy will bring out in time
the best form of intellectual enjoyment and feeling.
The highest gives the best — that is the rule. The pres-
ent chapter should be read and studied in connection
with those devoted to the intellect.

Blended Emotions.

As we have said at the beginning of our consideration
of the subject of the emotions, the majority of emotions
are composed of several feelings, and tend to blend and
combine emotional elements. For instance, the emotion
of sexual love certainly has its origin in the instinctive
feelings of the race, and its motive element is that of
passion. But passion is far from being all there is in
human sexual love. Above the plane of passion is
found the social emotion of companionship, protection,
and care; the desire for the welfare of the loved one;
the mingling of the love of the parent with that of the
mate. Human love manifests many of the altruistic
emotions during its course. The welfare of the loved
one becomes the chief concern of life, often stronger
even than self-preservation. The joy of the loved one
becomes the greatest joy, far surpassing the more selfish
forms of happiness. Then come the aesthetic feelings,
which find satisfaction in the two ^^liking the same
things,'^ sympathy and community of feeling being the

130 YOUB MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

connecting link. The several ideals of the two com-
bining, there is produced an idealistic nnion^ which is
often called ^^spiritual harmony/^ Finally, there is
found the blending of the intellectual emotions, in
which harmony there exists one of the highest forms of
pleasure satisfaction between two persons of opposite
sexes. It is said that the more things that a man and
woman ^^like'^ in common, the closer will be their ^^lik-
ing^* for each other. ^^I love you because you love the
things I love,^^ is no rare thought and expression.

So it is seen that though born in elemental instinct
and passion, human sexual love is something far differ-
ent in its flowering. And yet without its root it would
not be, and cannot be. This is an excellent example
of the complex nature of the most common emotions.
It may be used as a typical illustration. What is true
of it is also true, in a way and in a degree, of every
other form of emotion. Therefore in studying a par-
ticular emotion, be not too quick to cry, ^^It is this;
it is that!^^ but rather seek to say, ^^It is composed of
this and that, of this and that!'^ Few, if any, emo-
tions are simple ; the majority are very complex. Hence
the difficulty of satisfactory classification, and the dan-
ger of dogmatic definition.

CHAPTER XVIII.

The Role of the Emotions.

THE average person greatly underestimates the
part played by the emotional nature in the
mental activities of the individual. He is in-
clined to the opinion that, with the exception of the
occasional manifestation of some strong emotional feel-
ing, the majority of persons go through life using only
the reasoning and reflective faculties in deciding the
problems of life and guiding the mental course of
action. There can be no greater mistake concerning
the mental activities. So far from being subordinate to
the intellect, the emotional nature in the majority of
cases dominates the reasoning faculties. There are but
very few persons who are able to detach themselves, even
in a small degree, from the feelings, and to decide
questions cold-bloodedly by pure reason or intellectual
effort. Moreover, there are but few persons whose wills
are guided by pure reason; the feelings supply the
motive for the majority of acts of will. The intellect,
even when used, is generally employed to better carry
out the dictates of feeling and desire. Much of our
reasoning is performed in order to justify our feelings,

133 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

or to find proofs for the position dictated by our de-
sires, feelings, sympathies, prejudices, or sentiments.
It has been said that "men seek not reasons but excuses
for their actions/'

Moreover, in the elementary processes of the intellect
the emotions play an important part. We have seen
that attention largely follows interest, and interest re-
sults from feeling. Therefore our attention, and that
which arises from it, is dependent largely upon the
feelings. Thus feeling asserts its power in guarding
the very outer gate of knowledge, and determines largely
what shall or shall not enter therein. It is one of the
constantly-appearing paradoxes of psychology, that
while feelings have originally arisen from attention,
it is equally true that attention depends largely upon
the interest resulting from the feelings. This is read-
ily admitted in the case of involuntary attention, which
always goes out toward objects of interest and feeling,
but is likewise true of even voluntary attention, which
we direct to something of greater or more nearly ulti-
mate interest than the things of lesser or more imme-
diate interest.

Sully says: "By an act of will I may resolve to
turn my attention to something — say a passage in a
book. But if, after the preliminary process of adjust-
ment of the mental eye the object opens up no inter-

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT, 133

esting phase, all the willing in the world will not pro-
duce a calm, settled state of concentration. The will
introduces mind and object; it cannot force an attach-
ment between them. No compulsion of attention ever
succeeded in making a young child cordially embrace
and appropriate, by an act of concentration, an unsuit-
able and therefore uninteresting object. We thus see
that even voluntary interest is not removed from the
sway of interest. What the will does is to determine
the hind of interest that shall prevail at the moment/^

Again, we may see that memory is largely dependent
upon interest in recording and recalling its impres-
sions. We remember and recall most easily that which
most greatly interests us. In proportion to the lack of
interest in a thing do we find difficulty in remembering
or recalling it. This is equally true of the imagination,
for it refuses to dwell upon that which is not interest-
ing. Even in the reasoning processes we find the will
balking at uninteresting subjects, but galloping along,
pushing before it the rolling chair of interesting intel-
lectual application.

Our judgments are affected by our feelings. It is
much easier to approve of the actions of some person
we like, or whose views accord with our own, than of an
individual whose personality and views are distasteful
to us. It is very difficult to prevent prejudice, for or

134 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

against, from influencing our judgments. It is also true
that we ^^find that for which we look^^ in things and
persons, and that which we expect and look for is often
dependent upon our feelings. If we dislike a person
or thing we are usually able to perceive no end of
undesirable things in him or it; while if we are favor-
ably inclined we easily find many admirable qualities
in the same person or thing. A little change in our
feeling often results in the formation of an entirely
new set of judgments regarding a person or thing.

Halleck well says : ^^On the one hand the emotions
are favorable to intellectual action, since they supply
the interest one feels in study. One may feel intensely
concerning a certain subject and be all the better stu-
dent. Hence the emotions are not, as was formerly
thought, entirely hostile to intellectual action. Emo-
tion often quickens the perception, burns things indel-
ibly into the memory, and doubles the rapidity of
thought. On the other hand strong feelings often viti-
ate every operation of the intellect. They cause us to
see only what we wish to, to remember only what inter-
ests our narrow feeling at the time, and to reason from
selfish data only. * * * Emotion puts the magnifying
end of the telescope to our intellectual eyes where our
own interests are concerned, the minimizing end when
we are looking at the interest of others. * * * Thought

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 135

IS deflected when it passes through an emotional me^
diunij just as a sunbeam is when it strihes water/*

As for the will, the best authorities hold that it is
almost if not entirely dependent upon desire for its
motive force. As desire is an outgrowth and develop-
ment of feeling and emotion, it is seen that even the
will depends upon feeling for its inciting motives and
its direction. We shall consider this point at greater de-
tail in the chapters devoted to the activities of the will.

We would remind you again, at this point, of the
great triangle of the mind, the emotional, ideative, and
volitional activities — feeling, thinking, and willing —
and their constant reaction upon each other and absolute
interdependence. We find that our feelings arise from
previous willing and ideation, and are aroused by ideas
and repressed by will; again we see that our ideas are
largely dependent upon the interest supplied by our
feelings, and that our judgments are influenced by the
emotive side of our mental life, the will also having its
part to play in the matter. We also see that the will
is called into activity by the feelings, and often guided
or restrained by our thoughts, the will, indeed, being
considered as moved entirely by our feelings and ideas.
Thus is the trinity of mental forces seen ever in mutual
relation — constant action and reaction ever existing be-
tween them.

CHAPTER XIX.

The Ctnotions and Happiness.

^^'T TTAPPINESS'^ has been defined by an author-
I I ity as "the pleasurable emotion arising
-^ -*- from the gratification of all desires ; the
enjoyment of pleasure without pain/^ Another has
said that ^Tiappiness is the state in which all desires are
satisfied/^ But these definitions have been attacked.
It is held by many that a state of the absolute satisfac-
tion of desire would not be happiness, for happiness
consists largely in pleasurable anticipation and imagin-
ings which disappear upon the realization of the desire.
It is held that absolute satisfaction would be a nega-
tive state. Paley expressed a better idea when he said
that "any condition may be denominated ^happy' in
which the amount or aggregate of pleasure exceeds that
of pain, and the degree of happiness depends upon the
quantity of this excess.'^

Some have held that an existing contrast between
pain and pleasure (the balance being in favor of the
latter) is necessary to establish happiness. Be this as
it may, it is admitted by all that one^s happiness or
unhappiness depends entirely upon one's emotional na-

YOUE MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 137

ture and the degree of the satisfaction thereof. And it
is generally admitted that to be happy is the great aim
and object of the life of the majority of persons, — if,
indeed, not of every person, — the happiness, of course,
depending upon the quality and degree of the emotions
forming the person's emotional nature. Thus it is seen
that we are dependent upon the emotional side of our
mental life in this as in nearly everything else making
life worth while.

Theologians have often sought to point out that hap-
piness is not the goal of life and living, but human
nature has always insisted that happiness is the great-
est end, and philosophy has generally supported it. But
wisdom shows that happiness is not always dependent
upon the pleasure of the moment, for the sacrifice of
immediate pleasure frequently results in a much greater
happiness in the future. In the same way an imme-
diate disagreeable task often gains for us a greater
satisfaction in the future. Likewise, it is frequently
greater happiness to sacrifice a personal pleasure for the
happiness of others than it would be to enjoy the
pleasure of the moment at the expense of the pain of
the other. There is often a far greater pleasure result-
ing from an altruistic action of self-sacrifice than in
the performance of the selfish, egoistic act. But, as
the subtle reasoner may insist, the result is the same

138 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

— ^the ultimate happiness and satisfaction of the self.
This conclusion does not rob the altruistic ac' of its
virtue, however, for the person who finds his greatest
pleasure in giving pleasure to others is to be con-
gratulated— as is the community which shelters him.

There is no virtue in pain, suffering, sacrifice, or
unhappiness for its own sake. This illusion of asceti-
cism is vanishing from the human mind. Sacrifice on
the part of the individual is valuable and valid only
when it results in higher present or future happiness for
the individual or some one else. There is no virtue in
pain, physical or mental, except as a step to a greater
good for ourselves or others. Pain at the best is merely
nature's alarm and warning of ^^not this way/^ It is
also held that pain serves to bring out pleasure by
contrast, and is therefore valuable in this way. Be this
as it may, no normal individual deliberately seeks ulti-
mate pain in preference to ultimate happiness; the
greatest ultimate happiness to one's self and to those
he loves is the normal and natural goal of the normal
person. But the concept of ^^those he loves/' in many
cases, includes the race as well as the iminediate family.

Wisdom shows the individual that the greatest happi-
ness comes to him who controls and restrains many of
his feelings. Dissipation results in pain and unhappi-
ness ultimately. The doctrine of thoughtless indulgence

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 139

is unphilosophkal and is contradicted by the experience
of the race. Moreover, wisdom shows that the highest
happiness comes not from the indulgence of the phys-
ical feelings alone, or to excess, but rather from the
cultivation, development, and manifestation of the
higher feelings — the social, aesthetic, and intellectual
emotions. The higher pleasures of life, literature, art,
music, science, invention, constructive imagination, etc.,
yield a satisfaction and happiness keener and more
enduring than can possibly the lower forms of feeling.
But the human being must not despise any part of his
emotional being. Everything has its uses, which are
good; and its abuses, which are bad. Every part of
one's being, mental and physical, is well to use ; but no
part is well used if it uses the individual instead of
being itself used.

A recent writer has held that the end and aim of life
should not be the pursuit of happiness, but rather the
building of character. The obvious answer is that the
two are identical in spirit, for to the man who appre-
ciates the value of character, its attainment is the great-
est happiness ; the wise teach that the greatest happiness
comes to him who is possessed of a well-rounded, devel-
oped character. Another writer has said that ^^the aim
of life should be self-improvement, with a due regard
to the interest of others.'^ This is but saying that the

140 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

greatest happiness to the wise man lies in this course.
Any one who is wise enough, or great enough, to make
these ends the aim and goal of life will find the greatest
happiness therefrom. Arnold Bennett advances as a
good working philosophy of life: ^^cheerfulness, kindli-
ness, and rectitude.^^ Can any one doubt that this
course would bring great ultimate happiness?

Happiness consists in that which "contents the
spirit,^^ and the latter depends entirely upon the char-
acter of the feelings and emotions entertained by one,
as weighed in the balance of reason, and as passed upon
by judgment and the sense of right action. The great-
est degree of happiness, or at least the greatest ratio
of pleasure over pain, is obtained by a careful and intel-
ligent cultivation of the feeling side of one's being in
connection with the cultivation of the intellect and the
mastery of the will. To be able to bring the capacity
for enjoyment to its highest ; to be able to intelligently
choose that which will bring the greatest ultimate hap-
piness in accordance with right action; and, finally, to
be able to use the will in the direction of holding fast
to that which is good and rejecting that which is bad —
this is the power of creating happiness. The feelings,
the intellect, and the will — ^her^, as ever — combine to
manifest the result.

Finally, it must be remembered that all human hap-

YOUB MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 141

piness consists in part of the ability to bear pain — ^to
suffer. There must be the dash of Stoicism in the
wise Epicurean. One must learn to pluck from pain,
suffering, and unhappiness the secret drop of honey
which lies at its heart, and which consists in the
knowledge of the meaning and use of pain and the
means whereby it may be transmuted into knowledge
and experience, from which later happiness may be
distilled. To profit by pain, to transmute suffering
into joy, to transform present unhappiness into a future
greater happiness — this is the privilege of the philos-
opher.

«

The mental states and activities known as ^^desire^'

are a direct development of the feeling and emotional
phase of the mind and form the motive power of the
will. Desire, in fact, may be said to be composed of
feeling on one side and will on the other. But the
influence of the intellect or reasoning faculties has
a most important part to play in the evolution of feel-
ing into desire, and in the consequent action of the will
by the presentation and weighing of conflicting desires.
Therefore, the logical place for the consideration of the
activities of the intellect is at this point — ^between emo-
tion and will. Accordingly, we shall leave the subject
of feeling and emotion for the present, to be taken up

143 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

again in connection with the subject of desire, after we
have considered the intellectual processes of the mind.
But, as has been indicated, we shall see the presence and
influence of the feelings and emotions even in the
activities of the intellect.

CHAPTER XX.

The Intellect.

THE class of mental states or processes grouped
together under the name of ^^intellectual proc-
esses/^ forms the second great division of the
mental states, the two others being ^^f eeling^^ and ^Vill/^
respectively.

^^Intellect'^ has been defined as follows: ^^The part
or faculty of the human mind by which it knows, as
distinguished from the power to feel and to will; the
thinking faculty; the understanding;^^ also as "that
faculty of the human mind by which it receives or
comprehends the ideas communicated to it by the senses
or the perception, or other means, as distinguished from
the power to feel and to will; the power or faculty to
perceive objects in their relations; the power to judge
and comprehend; also the capacity for higher forms of
knowledge, as distinguished from the power to perceive
and imagine.^^

In the preceding chapters we have seen that the
individual is able to experience sensations in conscious-
ness, and that he is able tr> j^f^jr^gjj^ theTn mentally, the
latter being^he first step in intellectual activity. We

144 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

have also seen that he is able to reproduce the percep-
tion by means of memory and imagination, and that
by means of the latter he is able to re-combine and
rearrange the objects of perception. We have also seen
that he has what are known as ^^f€elings,^^:wMch depend
upon his jrevious experience__and_that of his prngen-
itor^. So far the mind has been considered merely as
a receiving and reproducing instrument, with the added
attachment of the re-combining power of the imagina-
tion. Up to this point the mind may be compared to
the phonographic cylinder, with an attachment capable
of re-combining its recorded impressions. The impres-
sions are received and perceived, are stored away, are
reproduced, and by the use of the imagination are
re-combined.

Up to this point the mind is seen to be more or less
of an automatic, instinctive faculty. It may be traced
from the purely reflex activity of the lowest forms of
life up through the lower animals, step by step, until
a very high degree of mental power is perceived in ani-
mals like the horse, dog, or elephant. But there is
something lacking. There is missing that peculiar
power of thinking in symbols and abstract conceptions
which distinguishes the human race and which is closely
bound up with the faculty of language or expressing
thoughts in words. The comparatively high mental

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT, 145

process of the lower animals is dwarfed by the human
faculty of '^thinking/^ And thinking is the manifesta-
tion of the intellect.

What is it to think f Strange to say, very few per-
sons can answer this question correctly at first. They
find themselves inclined to answer the inquiry in the
words of the child: ^^Why, to think is to think T Let
us see if we can make it plain. The dictionary defini-
tion is a little too technical to be of much use to the
beginner, but here it is : "To employ any of the intel-
lectual powers except that of simple perception through
the senses.^^ But what are the "intellectual powers'^
so employed, and how are they employed? Let us see.

Stating the matter plainly in common terms, we may
say that "thjnking^^ is the mental process of (1) com-
paring our perceptions of things with each other, noting
the points of likeness and of difference; (2) classifying
them according to the ascertained likeness or difference,
and thus tying them up in mental bundles with each
set of "things of a kind'' in its own bundle; (3) form-
ing the abstract, symbolic mental idea (concept) of
each class of things, so grouped, which we may after-
ward use as we use figures in mathematical calculations ;
(4) using these concepts in order to form inferences,
that is, to reason from the known to the unknown, and
to form judgments regarding things; (5) comparing

146 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

these judgments and deducing higher judgments from
them; and so on.

Without thinking, man would he dependent upon
each particular experience for his knowledge, except so
far as memory and imagination could instinctively aid
him. By thought processes he is enabled to infer that
if certain things be true of one of a certain kind of
things, the same thing may be expected from others of
the same class. As he is able to note points of likeness
or difference, he is able to form clearer and truer infer-
ences. In addition^ he is able to apply his constructive
imagination to the rearrangement and recombination
of things whose nature he has discovered, and thus
progress along the line of material achievement as well
as of knowledge. It must be remembered, however,
that the intellect depends entirely for its material upon
the perception, which in turn receives its raw material
from the senses. The intellect merely groups together
the material of perception, makes inferences, draws
conclusions from, and forms conclusions regarding,
them, and in the case of constructive imagination
recombines them in effective forms and arrangement.
The intellect is the last in order in the course of mental
evolution. It appears last in order in the mind of the
child, but it often persists in old age after the feelings
have grown dim and the memory weak.

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 147

Concepts.

What is known as the ^^concepf' is the first fruit of
the elemental processes of thought. The various im-
ages of outside objects are sensed, then perceived, and
then grouped according to their likenesses and differ-
ences, and the result is the production of concepts. It
is difficult to define a concept so as to convey any mean-
ing to the beginner. For instance, the dictionaries give
the definition as ^^an abstract, general conception, idea,
or notion formed in the mind.^^ Not very clear this, is
it ? Perhaps we can understand it better if we say that
the terms dog, cat, man, horse, house, etc., each ex-
presses a concept. Every term expresses a concept;
every general name of a thing or quality is a term
applied to the concept. We shall see this a little clearer
as we proceed.

We form a concept in this way : ( 1 ) We perceive a
number of things; (2) then we notice certain qualities
possessed by things — certain properties, attributes, or
characteristics which make the thing what it is; (3)
then we compare these qualities of the thing with the
qualities of other things and see that there is a likeness
in some cases, in various degrees, and a difference in
other cases, in various degrees; (4) then we generalize
or classify the perceived things according to their ascer-
tained likenesses and differences; (5) then we form a

148 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

general idea or concept embodying each class of thing;
and, finally, we give to the concept a term, or name,
which is its svmboL

The concept is a general idea of a class of things;
the term is the expression of that general idea. The
concept is the idea of a class of things ; the term is the
label affixed to the thing. To illustrate this last dis-
tinction, let ns take the concept and term of ^T)ird/^
for instance. By perception, comparison, and classifi-
cation of the qualities of living things we have arrived
at the conclusion that there exists a great general class
the qualities of which may be stated thus : ^^arm-
blooded, feathered, winged, oviparou-s, vertebrate.^^ To
this general class of quality-possessing animals we apply
the English term ^*^bird.^' The name is merely a sym-
bol. In German the term is vogel; in Latin, avis; but
in each and every case the general idea or concept above
stated, i, e., ^Varm-blooded, feathered, winged, ovipa-
rous, vertebrate,^^ is meant. If anything is found having
all of those particular qualities, then we know it must
be what we call a ^^bird.^' And everything that we call
a ^^bird'' must have those qualities. The term '^TDird"
is the symbol for that particular combination of quali-
ties existing in a thing.

There is a difference between a mental image of the
imagination and a concept. The mental image must

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT, 149

always be of a particular thing, while the concept is
always an idea of a general class of things which can-
not be clearly pictured in the mind. For instance, the
imagination may form the mental picture of any known
bird, or even of an imaginary bird, but that bird always
will be a distinct, particular bird. Try to form a men-
tal picture of the general class of birds — ^how will you
do it? Do you realize the difficulty? First, such an
image would have to include the characteristics of the
large birds, such as the eagle, ostrich, and condor; and
of the small birds, such as the wren and humming bird.
It must be a composite of the shape of all birds, from
the ostrich, swan, eagle, crane, down to the sparrow,
swallow, and humming bird. It must picture the par-
ticular qualities of birds of prey, water birds, and
domestic fowls, as well as the grain eaters. It must
exhibit all the colors found in bird life, from the bright-
est'reds and greens down to the sober grays and browns.
A little thought will show that a clear mental image of
such a concept is impossible. What the most of us do,
when we think of ^^bird,'"* is to picture a vague, flying
shape of dull color; but when we stop to think that
the term must also include the waddling duck and the
scratching barnyard chicken, we see tJiat our mental
image is faulty. The trouble is that the term "bird''
really means "all-bird,'' and we cannot picture an "all-

150 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT,

bird^^ from the very nature of the case. Our terms,
therefore, are like mathematical figures, or algebraic
symbols, which we use for ease, speed, and clearness of
thinking.

The trouble does not end here. Concepts not only
include the general idea of things, but also the general
idea of the qualities of things. Thus sweetness, hard-
ness, courage, and energy are concepts, but we cannot
form a mental image of them by themselves. We may
picture a sweet thing, but not sweetness itself. So- you
see that a concept is a purely abstract mental idea — a
symbol — akin to the figures 1, 2, 3, etc., and used in
the same way. They stand for general classes of things.
A ^"^term^^ is the verbal and written expression of the
general idea or concept. The student is requested to
fix these distinctions in his mind, so as to render further
understanding of them easy.

CHAPTEE XXI.

Conception.

THE process of conception has been well defined
by Gordy as ^^that act of mind by which it
forms an idea of a class; or that act of the
mind that enables ns to use general names intelligently/^
He adds : ^^It is, of course, understood that I am using
the word ^class' to denote an indefinite number of indi-
viduals that resemble each other in certain particulars."

Perception.

The first step in conception, as we have seen, is that
of perception. It is readily perceived that the char-
acter of our intellectual processes depends materially
upon the variety, clearness, and accuracy of our per-
ceptions. Therefore, again, we would refer our stu-
dents to the chapter in which we have stated the
importance of clear perception.

Memory.

The future steps of conception depend materially
upon the clearness of the memory, as we can classify

152 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

objects only by remembering their qualities beyond the
immediate moment of actual, original perception.
Therefore, the memory should be strengthened for this
as well as other objects.

Abstraction.

The second step in conception is that of the mental
abstraction of qualities from the observed thing. That
is, we must perceive and then mentally set aside the
observed qualities of the thing. For instance, man first
perceived the existence of certain qualities in things.
He found that a certain number of things possessed
some of these qualities in common, while others pos-
sessed other qualities in the same way, and thus arose
classification from comparison. But both comparison
and classification are possible only by abstraction, or
the perception of the quality as a 'Hhing'' ; thus, the
abstraction of the idea of the quality of sweetness from
the idea of sugar. Sweetness is a quality rather than
a thing itself. It is something possessed by sugar which
helps to make sugar what it is.

Color, shape, size, mental qualities, habits of action —
these are some of the qualities first observed in things
and abstracted from them in thought. Eedness, sweet-
ness, hardness, softness, largeness, smallness, fragrance,
swiftness, slowness, fierceness, gentleness, warmness,

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 153

coldness, etc. — these are abstracted qualities of things.
Of course these qualities are really never divorced from
things, but the mind divorces them in order to make
thinking easier. An authority says : ^^ Animals are in-
capable of making abstractions, and that is the reason
why they cannot develop formal thought. * * * Abstract
thought is identical with rational thought, which is the
characteristic feature of the thought of speaking beings.
This is the reason why abstract thought is upon earth
the exclusive property of man, and why brutes are in-
capable of abstract thought. The process of naming
is the mechanism of abstraction, for names establish the
mental independence of the objects named/^

The processes of abstraction depend upon attention —
concentrated attention. Attention directed to the quali-
ties of a thing tends to abstract the qualities in thought
from the thing itself. Mill says : ^^Abstraction is pri-
marily the result of attention.^' Hamilton says : ^^At-
tention and abstraction are only the same process viewed
in different relations.^^ Cultivation of the power of
abstraction means principally cultivation of attention.
Any mental activity which tends toward analysis or
separation of a thing into its parts, qualities, or ele-
ments will serve to cultivate and develop the power of
abstraction.

The habit of converting qualities into concepts is

154 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

acquired by transforming adjective terms into their
corresponding noun terms. For instance, a piece of
colored candy possesses the qualities of being round,
hard, red, sweet, etc. Transforming these adjective
qualities into noun terms we have the concepts of round-
ness, hardness, redness, and sweetness, respectively.

Comparison'.

The third step in conception is that of comparison,
in which the qualities of several things are compared
or examined for likenesses and differences. We find
many qualities in which the several things differ, and a
few in which there is a likeness. Classes are formed
from resemblances or likenesses, while individuals are
separated from apparent classes by detection of differ-
ences. Finally, it is found that separate things, while
having many points of difference which indicate their
individuality, nevertheless have a few points of likeness
which indicate that they belong to the same general
family or class. The detection of likenesses and differ-
ences in the qualities of various things is an important
mental process. Many of the higher thought processes
depend largely upon the ability to compare things prop-
erly. The development of attention and perception tends
to develop the power of comparison.

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 155

Classification or Generalization.

The fourth step in conception is that of classification
or generalization, whereby we place individual things in
a mental bundle or class, and then this bundle in com-
pany with other bundles into a higher class, and so on.
Thus we group all the individual small birds having
certain characteristics into a species, then several related
species into a larger family, and this into a still larger,
until finally we group all the bird families into the great
family which we call ^^birds" and of which the simple
term "bird'^ expresses the general concept.

Jevons says : ^^We classify things together whenever
we observe that they are like each other in any respect,
and therefore think of them together. In classifying a
collection of objects, we do not merely put together into
groups those which resemble each other, but we also
divide each class into smaller ones in which the resem-
blance is more complete. Thus the class of white sub-
stances may be divided into those which are solid, and
those which are fluid, so that we get the two minor
classes of solid-white and fluid-white substances. It is
desirable to have names by which to show that one class
is contained in another, and, accordingly, we call the
class which is divided into two or more smaller ones the
genus, and the smaller ones into which it is divided,
the species/^

156 YOUB MIND AND ROW TO USE IT.

Every species is a small family of the individuals
composing it, and at the same time is an individual
species of the genus just above it ; the genus, in turn, is
a family of several species, and at the same time an
individual genus in the greater family or genus above it.

The student may familiarize himself with the idea of
generalization by considering himself as an individual,
John Smith. John represents that unit of generaliza-
tion. The next step is to combine John with the other
Smiths of his immediate family. Then this family
may be grouped with his near blood relations, and so on,
until finally all the related Smiths, near and remote, are
grouped together in a great Smith family.

Or, in the same way, the family group may be en-
larged until it takes in all the white people in a county,
then all the white people in the state, then all in the
United States; then all the white races, then all the
white and other light-skinned races, then all mankind.
Then, if one is inclined, the process may be continued
until it embraces every living creature from moneron
to man. Eeversing the process, living creatures may be
divided and subdivided until all mankind is seen to
stand as a class. Then the race of man may be divided
into sub-races according to color; then the white race
may be subdivided into Americans and non- Americans.
Then the Americans may be divided into inhabitants of

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 157

the several states, or into Indianans and non-Indianans ;
then into the inhabitants of the several counties of
Indiana, and thus the Posey Countians are reached.
Then the Posey County people are divided into Smiths
and non-Smiths; then the Smith family into its con-
stituent family groups, and then into the smaller fami-
lies, and so on, until the classification reaches one par-
ticular John Smith, who at last is found to be an
individual — in a class by himself. This is the story of
the ascending and descending processes of generaliza-
tion.

CHAPTER XXII.

Classes of Concepts.

IN" the preceding chapter we have seen the process
of conception — of the forming of concepts. The
idea of a general class of things or qualities is a
concept. Each concept contains the qualities which are
common to all the individuals composing the class^, but
not those qualities which pertain only to the minor
classes or the individuals. For instance, the concept of
^^bird'^ will necessarily include the common qualities of
warm-bloodedness, f eatheredness, wingedness, oviparous-
ness, and vertebratedness. But it will not include color,
special shape, size, or special features or characteristics
of the subfamilies or individuals composing the great
class. The class comprises the individuals and sub-
classes composing it; the concept includes the general
and common qualities which all in the class possess. A
percept is the mental image of a particular thing; a
concept is the mental idea of the general qualities of a
class of things. A percept arises from the perception of
a sensation ; a concept is a purely mental, abstract crea-
tion, whose only existence is in the world of ideas and

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 159

which has no corresponding individual object in the
world of sense.

There are two general classes of concepts, namely:
(1) concrete concepts, in which the common qualities
of a class of things are combined into one conceptual
idea, such as ^^bird/^ of which we have spoken; (2)
abstract concepts, in which is combined the idea of some
quality common to a number of things, such as ^^sweet-
ness^^ or ^^redness/^ Jevons^s well-known rule for terms
is an aid in remembering this classification: ^^A con-
crete term is the name of a thing; an abstract term is
the name of a quality of a thing/'

It is a peculiar fact and rule of concrete concepts
that (1) the larger the class of things embraced in a
concept, the smaller are its general qualities; and (2)
the larger the number of general qualities included in
a concept, the smaller the number of individuals em-
braced by it. For instance, the term ^^bird^^ embraces
a great number of individuals — all the birds that are
in existence, in fact, but it has but few general quali-
ties, as we have seen. On the contrary, the concept
^^stork^^ has a much larger number of general qualities,
but embraces far fewer individuals. Finally, the indi-
vidual is reached, and we find that it has more qualities
than any class can have; but it is composed of the
smallest possible number of individuals, one. The secret

160 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

is this : No two individuals can have as many qualities
in common as each has individually^ unless they are
precisely alike, vrhich is impossible in nature.

Imperfect Co:n'cepts.

It is said that outside of strictly scientific definitions
very few persons agree in their concepts of the same
thing. Each has his or her own concept of the partic-
ular thing which he or she expresses by the same term.
A number of persons asked to define a common term like
"love/^ ^'religion/^ ^^faith/^ ^^belief/^ etc., will give such
a variety of answers as to cause wonderment. As 'Green
says: "My idea or image is mine alone — ^the reward
of careless observation if imperfect; of attentive, care-
ful, and varied observation if correct. Between mine
and yours a great gulf is fixed. N'o man can pass from
mine to yours, or from yours to mine. Neither in any
proper sense of the term can mine be conveyed to you.
Words do not convey thoughts; they are not vehicles
of thoughts in any true sense of that term. A word is
simply a common symbol which each associates with his
own idea or image.^^

The reason of the difference in the concepts of several
persons is that very few of our concepts are nearly per-
fect; the majority of them are quite imperfect and
incomplete. Jevons gives us an idea of this in his

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 161

remarks on classification: "Things may seem to be
very much like each other which are not so. Whales,
porpoises, seals, and several other animals live in the
sea exactly like a fish ; they have a similar shape and are
usually classed among fish. People are said to go whale
fishing. Yet these animals are not really fish at all,
but are much more like dogs and horses and other
quadrupeds than they are like fish. They cannot live
entirely under water and breathe the air contained in
the water like fish, but they have to come to the surface
at intervals to take breath. Similarly, we must not
class bats with birds because they fly about, although
they have what would be called wings; these wings are
not like those of birds, and, in truth, bats are much
more like rats and mice than they are like birds. Bot-
anists used at one time to classify plants according to
their size, as trees, shrubs, or herbs, but we now know
that a great tree is often more similar in character to a
tiny herb than it is to other great trees. A daisy has
little resemblance to a great Scotch thistle; yet the
botanist regards them as very similar. The lofty grow-
ing bamboo is a kind of grass, and the sugar cane also
belongs to the same class with wheat and oats.^^

It is a matter of importance that clear concepts should
be formed regarding at least the familiar things of life.
Tlie list of clear concepts should be added to. from time.

163 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

to time by study, investigation, and examination. The
dictionary should be consulted frequently, and a term
studied until one has a clear meaning of the concept
the term seeks to express. A good encyclopedia (not
necessarily an expensive one, in these days of cheap
editions) will also prove very useful in this respect.
As Halleck says : ^^It must be borne in mind that most
of our concepts are subject to change during our entire
life ; that at first they are made only in a tentative way ;
that experience may show us, at any time, that they
have been erroneously formed, that we have abstracted
too little or too much, made the class too wide or too
narrow, or that here a quality must be added or there
one taken away.^^

It is a good practice to make a memorandum of any-
thing of which you may hear, but of which you know
nothing, and then later to make a brief but thorough
investigation of that thing, by means of the dictionary
and encyclopedia, and of whatever good works may be
obtained on the subject, not leaving it until you feel
that you have obtained at least a clear idea of what
the thing really means, A half hour each evening de-
voted to exercise of this kind will result in a wonderful
increase of general information. We have heard of a
man who made a practice of reading a short article
in the encyclopedia every evening, giving preference to

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 163

subjects generally classed as familiar. In a year he
made a noticeable advance in general knowledge as well
as habits of thought. In five years he was looked upon
by his associates as a man of a remarkably large field
of general information and of more than ordinary intel-
ligence, which verdict was a just one. As a rule we
waste far more time on worthless fiction than we are
willing to devote to a little self-improvement of this
kind. We shrink at the idea of a general course of
instructive reading, little realizing that we can take our
study in small installments and at a very little cost in
time or labor.

Our concepts form the material which our intellect
uses in its reasoning processes. No matter how good
a reasoner one may be, unless he has a good supply of
general information about the things of which he is
reasoning, he will not make much real headway. We
must begin at the bottom and build a firm foundation
upon which the intellectual structure may be erected.
This foundation is composed of facts. These facts are
represented by our clear and correct concepts.

CHAPTER XXIII.
Judgments.

WE have seen the several steps of the mental
process whereby simple sensations are trans-
formed into percepts and then into con-
cepts or general ideas. The formation of the concept
is considered as the first great step in thinking. The
second great step in thinking is that of the formation
of the ^^judgment.^' The definition of ^^jndgment/^ as
the term is used in logicj is ^^the comparing: togetherjin
the mind of two ideas of things^ and determining
whether they agree or disagre^ejwith each ^thejr^ or that
one of them does or does not belong to the other. Judg-
ment is, therefore, (a) affirmative or (6) negative, as
(a) ^Snow is white,' or (&) ^AU white men are not
Europeans/ '^

What in logic is called a ^^proposition'' is the ex-
pression in words of a logical judgment. Hyslop
defined the term ^^proposition" as follows: ^^Any
affirmation or denial of an agreement between two con-
ceptions." For instance, we compare the concepts
^^sparrow" and "bird" and find that there is an agree-
ment, and that the former belongs to the latter; this

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 165

mental process is a judgment. We then announce the
judgment in the proposition: ^^The sparrow is a bird/'
In the same way we compare the concepts ^^bat'^ and
"bird/' find that there is a disagreement, and form the
judgment that neither belongs to the other, which we
express in the proposition: "The bat is not a bird/'
Or we may form the judgment that "sweetness" is a
quality of "sugar/' which we express in the proposi-
tion: "Sugar is sweet." Likewise, we may form the
judgment which results in the proposition: "Vinegar
is not sweet."

While the process of judgment is generally consideredr
as constituting the second great step of thinking, com-
ing after the formation of the concept, and consisting
of the comparing of concepts, it must be remembered
that the act of judging is far more elementary than
this, for it is found still farther back in the history of
thought processes. By that peculiar law of paradox
which we find everywhere operative in mind processes,
the same process of forming judgments which is used
in comparing concepts also has been used in forming
the same concepts in the stage of comparison. In fact,
the result_of all comparison^^iigh or low, must be a
judgment.

Halleck says: "Judgment is necessary in forming
concepts. When we decide that a quality is or is not

166 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

common to a class, we are really judging. This is an-
other evidence of the complexity and unified action of
the mind/' Brooks says: ^^The power of judgment
is of great value in its products. It is involved in or
accompanies every act of the intellect, and thus lies at
the foundation of all intellectual activity. It operates
directly in every act of the understanding, and even
aids the other faculties of the mind in completing their
activities and products. * * * Strictly speaking, every
intelligent act of the mind is accompanied with a judg-
ment. To know is to discriminate and, therefore, to
judge. Every sensation or cognition involves a knowl-
edge and so a judgment that it exists. The mind can-
not think at all without judging; to think is to judge.
Even in forming the notions which judgment com-
pares, the mind judges. Every notion or concept im-
plies a previous act of judgment to form it; in forming
a concept we compare the common attributes before we
unite them, and comparison is judgment. It is thus
true that ^Every concept is a contracted judgment;
every judgment an expanded concept.^ '^

It is needless to say that as judgments lie at the base
of our thinking, and also appear in every part of its
higher structure, the importance of correct judgment
in thought cannot be overestimated. But it is often
very difficult to form correct judgment even regarding

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 167

the most familiar things around us. Halleck says : "In
actual life things present themselves to us with their
qualities disguised or obscured by other conflicting
qualities. Men had for ages seen burning substances
and had formed a concept of them. A certain hard,
black, stony substance had often been noticed, and a
concept had been formed of it. This concept was im-
perfect ; but it is very seldom that we meet with perfect,
sharply-defined concepts in actual life. So it happened
that for ages the concept of burning substance was
never linked by judgment to the concept of stone coal.
The combustible quality in the coal was overshadowed
by its stony attributes. ^Of course stone will not burn,^
people said. One cannot tell how long the development
of mankind was retarded for that very reason. Eng-
land would not to-day be manufacturing products for
the rest of the world had not some one judged coal to
be a combustible substance. * * * Judgment is ever
silently working and comparing things that to past
ages seemed dissimilar; and it is constantly abstracting
and leaving out of the field of view those qualities
which have simply served to obscure the point at issue.^^
Gordy says: "The credulity of children is prover-
bial; but if we get our facts at first hand, if we study
^the living, learning, playing child,^ we shall see that he
is quite as remarkable for incredulity as for credulity.

168 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

The explanation is simple: He tends to lelieve the
first suggestion that comes into his mind, no matter
from what source; and since his belief is not the result
of any rational process, he cannot be made to disbelieve
it in any rational way. Hence it is that he is very
credulous about any matter about which he has no
ideas; but let the idea once get possession of his mind,
and he is quite as remarkable for incredulity as before
for credulity. * * * If we study the larger child, — ^the
man with a child's mind, an uneducated man, — we shall
have the same truth forced upon us. If the beliefs of
men were due to processes of reasoning, where they have
not reasoned they would not believe. But do we find
it so? Is it not true that the men who have the most
positive opinions on the largest variety of subjects — so
far as they have ever heard of them — are precisely those
who have the least right to them ? Socrates, we remem-
ber, was counted the wisest man in Athens because he
alone resisted his natural tendency to believe in the
absence of evidence; he alone would not delude himself
with the conceit of knowledge without the reality; and
it would scarcely be too much to say that the intellectual
strength of men is in direct proportion to the number
of things they are absolutely certain of . * * * I do not,
of course, mean to intimate that we should have no
opinions about matters that we have not personally

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 169

investigated. We take, and ought to take, the opinion
of some men about law, and others about medicine, and
others about particular sciences, and so on. But we
should clearly realize the difference between holding an
opinion on trust and holding it as the result of our own
investigations.^^

Brooks says: '^It should be one of the leading ob-
jects of the culture of young people to lead them to
acquire the habit of forming judgments. They should
not only be led to see things but to have opinions about
things. They should be trained to see things in their
relations and to put these relations into definite propo-
sitions. Their ideas of objects should be worked up
into thoughts concerning the objects. Those methods
of teaching are best which tend to excite a thoughtful
habit of mind that notices the similitudes and diversi-
ties of objects and endeavors to read the thoughts which
they embody and of which they are the symbols.^'

The study of logic, geometry, and the natural sci-
ences is recommended for exercise of the faculty of
judgment and the development thereof. The study and
practice of even the lower branches of mathematics are
also helpful in this direction. The game of checkers
or chess is recommended by many authorities. Some
have advocated the practice of solving enigmas, prob-
lems, rebuses, etc., as giving exercise to this faculty of

170 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

the mind. The cultivation of the ^'Why?^' attitude of
mind, and the answering of one's own mental questions,
is also helpful, if not carried to excess. "Doubting
Thomas'' is not always a term of reproach in these days
of scientific habits of thought, and "the man from
Missouri" has many warm admirers.

CHAPTEE XXIV.
Primary Laws of Thought*

IN connection with this subject we herewith call the
attention of the student to the well-known Pri-
mary Laws of Thought which have been recog-
nized as valid from the time of the ancient Greek
logicians. These laws are self-evident, and are uncon-
tradictable. They arq axiomatic. Jevons says of them :
"Students are seldom able to see at first their full
meaning and importance. All arguments may be ex-
plained when these self-evident laws are granted; and
it is not too much to say that the whole of logic will
be plain to those who will constantly use these laws as
their key.^' Here are the Three Primary Laws of
Thought:—

I. Law of Identity. "Whatever is, isf'
II. Law of Contradiction. "Nothing can both be

and not be.^'
III. Law of Excluded Middle. "Everything must
either be or not be; there is no middle
course.^^
I. The first of these laws, called ''Tlie Law of Iden-
tity ^ informs us that a thing is always itself, no mattei

172 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

under what guise or form it is perceived or may present
itself. An animal is always a bird if it possesses the
general characteristics of a "bird/' no matter whether it
exhibits the minor characteristics of an eagle, a wren,
a stork, or a humming bird. In the same way a whale
is a mammal because it possesses the general character-
istics of a mammal notwithstanding that it swims in the
water like a fish. Also, sweetness is always sweetness,
whether manifested in sugar, honey, flowers, or products
of coal tar. If a thing is that thing, then it is, and it
cannot be logically claimed that it is not

II. The second of these laws, called ^'The Law of
Contradiction/' informs us that the same quality or
class cannot be both affirmed and denied of a thing at
the same time and place. A sparrow cannot be said to
be both "bird'' and "not bird" at the same time. Neither
can sugar be said to be "sweet" and "not sweet'^ at the
same time. A piece of iron may be "hot" at one end
and "not hot" at another, but it cannot be both 'Tiot"
and "not hot" at the same place at the same time.

III. The third of these laws, called ''The Law of
Excluded Middle/' informs us that a given quality or
class must be affirmed or denied to everything at any
given time and place. Everything either must be of a
certain class or not, must possess a certain quality or
not, at a given time or place. There is no other alter-

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 173

native or middle course. It is axiomatic that any state-
ment mitst either be or not be true of a certain other
thing at any certain time and place; there is no escape
from this. Anything either must be ^T)lack^^ or *^not
black/^ a bird or not a bird, alive or not alive, at any
certain time or place. There is nothing else that it can
be; it cannot both be and not be at the same time and
place, as we have seen; therefore, it must either be or
not be that which is asserted of it. The judgment must
decide which alternative; but it has only two possible
choices.

But the student must not confuse opposite qualities
or things with ^^not-ness.^^ A thing may be "black'' or
"not black,'' but it need not be white to be "not black,"
for blue is likewise "not black" just as it is "not white."
The neglect of this fact frequently causes error. We
must always affirm either the existence or non-existence
of a quality in a thing; but this is far different from
affirming or denying the existence of the opposite qual-
ity. Thus a thing may be "not hard" and yet it does
not follow that it is "soft" ; it may be neither hard nor
soft.

Fallacious Application.

There exists what are known as "fallacies" of appli-
cation of these primary laws. A fallacy is an unsound
argument or conclusion. For instance, because a par-

174 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

m

ticular man is found to be a liar, it is fallacious to
assume that ''all men are liars/' for lying is a particular
quality of the individual man, and not a general quality
of the family of men. In the same way because a stork
has long legs and a long bill, it does not follow that all
birds must have these characteristics simply because the
stork is a bird. It is fallacious to extend an individual
quality to a class. But it is sound judgment to assume
that a class quality must be possessed by all individuals
in that class. It is a far different proposition which
asserts that ''some birds are black/' from that which
asserts that "all birds are black." The same rule, of
course, is true regarding negative propositions.

Another fallacy is that which assumes that because
the affirmative or negative proposition has not been, or
cannot be, proved, it follows that the opposite proposi-
tion must be true. The true judgment is simply "not
proven.^'

Another fallacious judgment is that which is based
on attributing absolute quality to that which is but
relative or comparative. For instance, the terms "hot''
and "cold" are relative and comparative, and simply
denote one's relative opinion regarding a fixed and cer-
tain degree of temperature. The certain thing is the
degree of temperature, say 75 degrees Fahrenheit; of
this we may logically claim that it is or is not true at

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 175

a certain time or place. It either is 75 degrees Fahren-
heit or it is not. But to one man this may seem warm
and to another cold; both are right in their judgments,
so far as their own relative feelings are concerned.
But neither can claim absolutely that it is warm or
cold. Therefore, it is a fallacy to ascribe absolute qual-
ity to a relative one. The absolute fact comes under
the Law of Excluded Middle, but a personal opinion is
not an absolute fact.

There are other fallacies which will be considered in
other chapters of this book, under their appropriate
heading.

CHAPTEE XXV. .

Reasoning.

REASONING, the third great step in thinking,
may be said to consist of ascertaining new
truths from old ones, new judgments from old
ones, unknown facts from known ones; in short, of
proceeding logically from the known to the unknown,
using the known as the foundation for the unknown
which is sought to be known. Gordy gives us the fol-
lowing excellent definition of the term: ^^Eeasoning
is the act of going from the known to the unknown
through other beliefs; of basing judgment upon judg-
ments ; reaching beliefs through beliefs/^ Reasoning,
V tjien, is seen to be a process^ of J)uildingji structure of
judgments^^ne^ resting upon Jhe other, the topmost
point being the final judgment, but the whole_consti-
tuting an edifice of judgment. This may be seen more
clearly when the various forms of reasoning are con-
sidered.
^ Immediate Reasoning.

The simplest form of reasoning is that known as
^^immediate reasoning,'^ by which is meant reasoning
by directly comparing two judgments without the inter-

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 177

vention of the third judgment, which is found in the
more formal classes of reasoning. This form of rea-
soning depends largely upon the application of the Three
Primary Laws of Thought, to which we have referred
in a previous chapter.

It will be seen that if (a) a thing is always itself,
then (b) all that is included in it must partake of its
nature. Thus, the bird family has certain class charac-
teristics, therefore by immediate reasoning we know that
any member of that family must possess those class
characteristics, whatever particular characteristics it
may have in addition. And we likewise know that we
cannot attribute the particular characteristics, as a
matter of course, to the other members of the class.
Thus, though all sparrows are birds, it is not true that
all birds are sparrows. ^^AU biscuits are bread ; but all
bread is not biscuit.'^

In the same way we know that a thing cannot be
bird and mammal at the same time, for the mammals
form a not-bird family. And, likewise, we know that
everything must be either bird or not bird, but that
being not bird does not mean being a mammal, for
there are many other not-bird things than mammals.
In this form of reasoning distinction is always made
between the universal or general class, which is ex-
pressed by the word all, and the particular or individual.

178 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

which is expressed by the word ^^some/^ Many persons
fail to note this difference in their reasoning, and fal-
laciously reason, for instance, that because some swans
are white, all swans must be so, which is a far different
thing from reasoning that if all is so and so, then some
must be so and so. Those who are interested in this
subject are referred to some elementary text-book on
logic, as the detailed consideration is too technical for
consideration here.

Eeasoning by Analogy.

Eeasoning by analogy is an elementary form of rea-
soning, and is the particular kind of reasoning em-
ployed by the majority of persons in ordinary thought. ^
It is based upon the unconscious recognition by the
human mind of the principle which is expressed by
Jevons as : ''If two or more things resemble each other
in many points^ they will proiaily resemble each other
in more points/' The same authority says : "Eeasoning
by analogy differs only in degree from that kind of
reasoning called 'generalization/ When many things
resemble each other in a few properties, we argue about
them by generalization. When a few things resemble
each other in many properties, it is a case of analogy .^^

While this form of reason is frequently employed
with more or less satisfactory results, it is always open

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 179

to a large percentage of error. Thus, persons have been
poisoned by toadstools by reason of false analogous rea-
soning that because mushrooms are edible, then toad-
stools, which resemble them, must also be fit for food;
or, in the same way, because certain berries resemble
other edible berries they must likewise be good food.
As Brooks says: ^^To infer that because John Smith
has a red nose and is also a drunkard, then Henry Jones,
who also has a red nose, is also a drunkard, would be
dangerous inference. Conclusions of this kind drawn
from analogy are frequently dangerous.^' Halleck says :
"Many false analogies are manufactured, and it is ex-
cellent thought training to expose them. The majority
of people think so little that they swallow these false
analogies just as newly-fledged robins swallow small
stones dropped into their mouths.^^

Jevons, one of the best authorities on the subject,
says : "There is no way in which we can really assure
ourselves that we are arguing safely by analogy. The
only rule that can be given is this : That the more
closely two things resemble each other, the more likely
it is that they are the same in other respects, especially
in points closely connected with those observed. In
order to be clear about our conclusions, we ought, in
fact, never to rest satisfied with mere analogy, but
ought to try to discover the general laws governing the

180 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT,

case. * * * We find that reasoning by analogy is not
to be depended upon, unless we make such an inquiry
into the causes and laws of the things in question that
we really employ inductive and deductive reasoning."

Higher Forms of Keasoning.

The two higher forms of xeMQ2iing_-axe--known^-re-
spectJrely^AS^ _^)__inductive reasoning, or inference irom
particular facts to general laws :_and (2) deductive rea-
soning^^r inference from general truths to particular
truths. While the class distinction is made for the
purpose of clear consideration, it must not be forgotten
that the two forms of reasoning are generally found in
combination. Thus, in inductive reasoning many steps
are taken by the aid of deductive reasoning; and, like-
wise, before we can reason deductively from general
truths to particular ones we must have discovered the
general truths by inductive reasoning from particular
facts. Thus there is a unity in all reasoning processes
as there is in all mental operations. Inductive reasoning
is a synthetical process; deductive reasoning, an an-
alytical one. In the first we combine and build up, in
the latter we dissect and separate.

CHAPTEE XXVI.

Inductive Reasoning.

INDUCTIVE reasoning is based upon the axiom:
''Wliat is true of the many is true of the whole/'
This axiom is based upon man^s belief in the
uniformity of nature. Inductive reasoning is a mental
ladder by which we climb from particular facts to gen- "^
eral laws, but the ladder rests upon the belief that the
universe is governed by law.

The steps in inductive reasoning are as follows : —
I. Observation, investigation, and examination of >v^
particular facts or things. If we wish to know the
general characteristics of the bird family, we must first
examine a sufficient number of birds of many kinds bo
as to discover the comparatively few general character-
istics possessed by all of the bird family, as distinct
from the particular characteristics possessed by only
some of that family. The greater the number of indi-
viduals examined, the narrower becomes our list of the
general qualities common to alh In the same way we
must examine many kinds of flowers before we come
to the few general qualities common to all flowers, which
we combine in the general concept of ^''flower/^ The

182 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

same, of course, is true regarding the discovery of gen-
eral laws from particular facts. We examine the facts
and then work toward a general law which will explain
them. For instance, the Law of Gravitation was dis-
covered by the observation and investigation of the fact
that all objects are attracted to the earth; further in-
vestigation revealed the fact that all material objects
are attracted to each other; then the general law was
discovered, or, rather, the hypothesis was advanced,
was found to explain the facts, and was verified by
further experiments and observation.

II. The second step in inductive reasoning is the
making of an hypothesis. An hypothesis is a proposition
^^^ or principle assumed as a possible explanation for a set
*^r class of facts. It is regarded as a "working theory,^'
which must be examined and tested in connection with
the facts before it is finally accepted. For instance,
after the observation that a number of magnets at-
tracted steel, it was found reasonable to advance the
hypothesis that "all magnets attract steel." In the
same way was advanced the hypothesis that "all birds
are warm-blooded, winged, feathered, oviparous verte-
brates." Subsequent observation and experiment estab-
lished the hypothesis regarding the magnet, and
regarding the general qualities of the bird family. If
a single magnet had been found which did not attract

YOUB MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 183

steel, then the hypothesis would have fallen. If a sin-
gle bird had been discovered which was not warm-
blooded, then that quality would have been stricken
from the list of the necessary characteristics of all
birds.

A theory is merely an hypothesis which has been veri-
fied or established by continued and repeated observa-
tion, investigation, and experiment.

Hypotheses and theories arise very frequently from
the subconscious assimilation of a number of particular
facts and the consequent flashing of a ^^great guess,'^
or ^^sacred suspicion of the truth,'^ into the conscious
field of attention. The scientific imagination plays an
important part in this process. There is, of course, a
world of difference between a "blind guess^^ based upon
insufficient data and a "scientific guess'^ resulting from
the accumulation of a vast store of careful and accurate
information. As Brooks says: "The forming of an
hypothesis requires a suggestive mind, a lively fancy, a
philosophic imagination that catches a glimpse of the
idea through the form or sees the law standing behind
the fact.^^ But accepted theories, in the majority of
cases, arise only by testing out and rejecting many
promising hypotheses and finally settling upon the one
which best answers all the requirements and best ex-
plains the facts. As an authority says : "To try wrong

184 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

guesses is with most persons the only way to hit upon
right ones/^

III. Testing the hypothesis by deductive reasoning
is the third step in inductive reasoning. This test is
made by applying the hypothetical principle to partic-
ular facts or things ; that is, to follow out mentally the
hypothetical principle to its logical conclusion. This
may be done in this way : "If so and so is correct, then
it follows that thus and so is true/^ etc. If the con-
clusion agrees with reason, then the test is deemed
satisfactory so far as it has gone. But if the result
proves to be a logical absurdity or inconsistent with
natural facts, then the hypothesis is discredited.

IV. Practical verification of the hypothesis is the
fourth step in inductive reasoning. This step consists
of the actual comparison of observed facts with the
"logical conclusions'^ arising from applying deductive
reasoning to the general principle assumed as a premise.
The greater number of facts agreeing with the conclu-
sions arising from the premise of the hypothesis, the
greater is deemed the "probability'^ of the latter. The
authorities generally assume an hypothesis to be verified
when it accounts for all the facts which properly are
related to it. Some extremists contend, however, that
before an hypothesis may be considered as absolutely
verified, it must not only account for all the associated

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 185

facts but that also there must be no other possible
hypothesis to account for the same facts. The ^^facts^'
referred to in this connection may be either (1) ob-
served phenomena, or (2) the conclusions of deductive
reasoning arising from the assumption of the hypoth-
esis, or (3) the agreement between the observed facts
and the logical conclusions. The last combination is
generally regarded as the most logical. The verifica-
tion of an hypothesis must be ^^an all-around one/^ and
there must be an agreement between the observed facts
and the logical conclusions in the case — the hypothesis
must ^^fit''' the facts, and the facts must ^^fit'^ the
hypothesis. The ^^facts'^ are the glass slipper of the
Cinderella legend — the several sisters of Cinderella
were discarded hypotheses, the slipper and the sisters
not '^fitting/^ When Cinderella's foot was found to be
the one foot upon which the glass slipper fitted, then
the Cinderella hypothesis was considered to have been
proved — the glass slipper was hers and the prince
claimed his bride.

-r^

\

CHAPTER XXVII.

Deductive Reasoning.

WE have seen in the preceding chapter that
from particular facts we reason inductively
to general principles or truths. We have
also seen that one of the steps of inductive reasoning is
the testing of the hypothesis by deductive reasoning.
We shall now also see that the results of inductive
reasoning are used as premises or bases for deductive
reasoning. These two forms of reasoning are opposites
and yet complementary to each other; they are in a
sense independent and yet are interdependent. Brooks
says: ^^The two methods of reasoning are the reverse
'l^ of each other. One goes from particulars to generals;
the other from generals to particulars. One is a proc-
ess of analysis ; the other is a process of synthesis. One
rises from facts to laws; the other descends from laws
^to facts. Each is independent of the other, and each
is a valid and essential method of inference.'^

Halleck well expresses the spirit of deductive reason-
ing as follows : ^^ After induction has classified certain
phenomena and thus given us a major premise, we may
proceed deductively to apply the inference to any new

/

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 187

specimen that can be shown to belong to that class.
Induction hands over to deduction a ready-made prem-
ise. Deduction takes that as a fact, making no inquiry
regarding its truth. Only after general laws have been
laid down, after objects have been classified, after major
premises have been formed, can deduction be employed.^^

Deductive reasoning proceeds from general principles
to particular facts. It is a descending process, an-
alytical in its nature. It rests upon the fundamental
axiomatic basis that ''whatever is true of the whole is
true of its parts/' or ''whatever is true of the universal
is true of the particulars/'

The process of deductive reasoning may be stated
briefly as follows: (1) A general principle of a class
is stated as a major premise; (2) a particular thing is
stated as belonging to that general class, this statement
being the minor premise; therefore (3) the general
class principle is held to apply to the particular thing,
this last statement being the conclusion. (A "premise'^
is "a proposition assumed to he true/')

The following gives us an illustration of the above
process : —

I. {/Major premise) — ^A bird is a warm-blooded,

feathered, winged, oviparous vertebrate,
II. {/Minor premise) — The sparrow is a bird;
therefore

188 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

III. (Conclusion) — The sparrow is a warm-blooded,

feathered, winged, oviparous vertebrate.
Or, again: —
I. (Major premise) — Rattlesnakes frequently bite

when enraged, and their bite is poisonous.
II. (Minor premise) — This snake before me is a

rattlesnake; therefore
III. (Conclusion) — This snake before me may bite
when enraged, and its bite will be poisonous.
The average person may be inclined to object that
he is not conscious of going through this complicated
process when he reasons about sparrows or rattlesnakes.
But he does, nevertheless. He is not conscious of the
steps, because mental habit has accustomed him to the
process, and it is performed more or less automatically.
But these three steps manifest in all processes of de-
ductive reasoning, even the simplest. The average per-
son is like the character in the French play who was
surprised to learn that he had ^^been talking prose for
forty years without knowing it.^^ Jevons says that the
majority of persons are equally surprised when they
find out that they have been using logical forms, more
or less correctly, without having realized it. He says:
"A large number even of educated persons have no clear
idea of what logic is. Yet, in a certain way, every one
must have been a logician since he began to speak.^^

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 189

There are many technical rules and principles of
logic which we cannot attempt to consider here. There
are, however, a few elementary principles of correct
reasoning which should have a place here. What is
known as a ^^syllogism^^ is the expression in words of
the various parts of the complete process of reasoning
or argument. Whately defines it as follows: ^^A syl-
logism is an argument expressed in strict logical form
so that its conclusiveness is manifest from the struc-
ture of the expression alone, without any regard to the
meaning of the term.'^ In short, if the two premises
are accepted as correct, it follows that there can be only
one true logical conclusion resulting therefrom. In
abstract or theoretical reasoning the word ''if is as-
sumed to precede each of the two premises, the ^^there-
fore^^ before the conclusion resulting from the "if,'^ of
course. The following are the general rules governing
the syllogism: —

I. Every syllogism must consist of three, and no
more than three, propositions, namely (1) the major
premise, (2) the minor premise, and (3) the conclu-
sion.

II. The conclusion must naturally follow from the
premises, otherwise the syllogism is invalid and con-
stitutes a fallacy or sophism.

III. One premise, at least, must be affirmative.

K

190 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

IV. If one premise is negative, the conclusion must
be negative.

V. One premise, at least, must be universal or gen-
eral.

VI. If one premise is particular, the conclusion also
must be particular.

The last two rules (V. and VI.) contain the essential
principles of all the rules regarding syllogisms, and any
syllogism which breaks them will be found also to break
other rules, some of which are not stated here for the
reason that they are too technical. These two rules may
be tested by constructing syllogisms in violation of their
principles. The reason for them is as follows: (Rule
V.) Because ^^from two particular premises no conclu-
sion can be drawn,'^ as, for instance : (1) Some men are
mortal; (2) John is a man. We cannot reason from
this either that John is or is not mortal. The major
premise should read ''all men.^^ (Rule VI.) Because
^^a universal conclusion can be drawn only from two
universal premises,^^ an example being needless here, as
the conclusion is so obvious.

Cultivation of Reasoning Faculties.

There is no royal road to the cultivation of thfe

I reasoning faculties. There is but the old familiar rule :

/ Practice, exercise, use.„. Nevertheless there are certain

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 191

studies which tend to develop the faculties in question.
The study of arithmetic^ especially mental arithmetic,
tends to develop correct habits of reasoning from one
truth to another — from cause to effect. Better still is
the study of geometry; and best of all, of course, is the
study of logic and the practice of working out its prob-
lems and examples. The study of philosophy and psy-
chology also is useful in this way. Many lawyers and
teachers have drilled themselves in geometry solely for
the purpose of developing their logical reasoning powers.
Brooks says: ^^So valuable is geometry as a disci-
pline that many lawyers and others review their geom-
etry every year in order to keep the mind drilled to
logical habits of thinking. * * * The study of logic
will aid in the development of the power of deductive
reasoning. It does this, first, by showing the method
by which we reason. To know how we reason, to see
the laws which govern the reasoning process, to analyze
the syllogism and see its conformity to the laws of
thought, is not only an exercise of reasoning but gives
that knowledge of the process that will be both a stim-
ulus and a guide to thought. No one can trace the
principles and processes of thought without receiving
thereby an impetus to thought. In the second place,
the study of logic is probably even more valuable because
it gives practice in deductive thinking. This, perhaps,

192 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

is its principal value, since the mind reasons instinc-
tively without knowing how it reasons. One can think
without the knowledge of the science of thinking just
as one can use language correctly without a knowledge
of grammar; yet as the study of grammar improves
one^s speech^ so the study of logic can but improve one^s
thought/'

In the opinion of the writer hereof^, one of the best
though simple methods of cultivating the faculties of
reasoning is to acquaint one's self thoroughly with the
more common fallacies or forms of false reasoning — so
thoroughly that not only is the false reasoning detected
at once but also the reason of its falsity is readily
understood. To understand the wrong ways of reason-
ing is to be on guard against them. By guarding
against them we tend to eliminate them from our
thought processes. If we eliminate the false we have
the true left in its place. Therefore we recommend the
weeding of the logical garden of the common fallacies,
to the end that the flowers of pure reason may flourish
in their stead. Accordingly, we think it well to call
your attention in the next chapter to the more common
fallacies, and the reason of their falsity.

A

CHAPTER XXVIII.
Fallacious Reasoning.

FALLACY is defined as ^^an unsound argu-
ment or mode of arguing which, while appear- y"
ing to be decisive of a question, is in reality

not so ; or a fallacious statement or proposition in which
the error is not readily apparent. When a fallacy is
used to deceive others, it is called ^sophistry/ ^^ It is
important that the student should understand the na-
ture of the fallacy and understand its most common
forms. As Jevons says : "In learning how to do right
it is always desirable to be informed as to the ways in
which we are likely to go wrong. In describing to a
man the road which he should follow, we ought to tell
him not only the turnings which he is to take but also
the turnings which he is to avoid. Similarly, it is a
useful part of logic which teaches us the ways and
turnings by which people most commonly go astray in
reasoning.^^

In presenting the following brief statement regarding
the more common forms of fallacy, we omit so far as
possible the technical details which belong to text-books
on logic.

194 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

Fallacies.
I. True Collective but False Particular. — An exam-
ple of this fallacy is found in the argument that because
the French race, collectively, are excitable, therefore
a particular Frenchman must be excitable. Or that
because the Jewish race, collectively, are good busi-
ness people, therefore the particular Jew must be a
good business man. This is as fallacious as arguing
that because a man may drown in the ocean he should
avoid the bath, basin, or cup of water. There is a vast
difference between the whole of a thing and its separate
parts. Mtric acid and glycerin, separately, - are not
explosive, but, combined, they form nitro-glycerin, a
most dangerous and powerful explosive. Eeversing this
form of illustration, we remind you of the old saying:
''Salt is a good thing; but one doesn't want to be put in
pickle/^

1 II. Irrelevant Conclusion. — This fallacy consists in
introducing in the conclusion matter not contained in
the premises, or in the confusing of the issue. For
instance: (1) All men are sinful; (2) John Smith is
a man; therefore (3) John Smith is a horse thief.
This may sound absurd, but many arguments are as
fallacious as this, and for the same reason. Or an-
other and more subtle form: (1) All thieves are liars;
(2) John Smith is a liar; therefore (3) John Smith

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 195

is a thief. The first example arises from the introduc-
tion of new matter, and the last from the confusion of
the issue.

III. False Cause. — This fallacy consists in attrib-
uting cause to a thing which is merely coincident with,
or precedent to, the effect. For instance: (1) The
cock crows just before or at the moment of sunrise;
therefore (2) the cock-crowing is the cause of the sun-
rise. Or, again: (1) Bad crops followed the election
of a Whig president; therefore (2) the Whig party is
the cause of the bad crops. Or, again: (1) Where
civilization is the highest, there we find the greatest
number of high hats; therefore (2) high hats are the
cause of civilization.

TV. Circular Reasoning,^ — In this form of fallacy
the person reasoning or arguing endeavors to explain
or prove a thing by itself or its own terms. For in-
stance: (1) The Whig party is honest because it advo-
cates honest principles; (2) the Whig principles are
honest because they are advocated by an honest party.
A common form of this fallacy in its phase of sophistry
is the use of synonyms in such a manner that they seem
to express more than the original conception, whereas
they are really but other terms for the same thing. An
historic example of circular reasoning is the following:
(1) The Church of England is the true Church, because

196 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

it was established by God; (2) it must have been estab-
lished by God, because it is the true Church. This form
of sophistry is most effective when employed in long
arguments in which it is difficult to detect it.

V. Begging the Question. — This fallacy arises from
the use of a false premise, or at least of a premise the
truth of which is not admitted by the opponent. It
may be stated, simply, as ^Hhe unwarranted assumption
of a premise, generally the major premised Many
persons in public life argue in this way. They boldly
assert an unwarranted premise, and then proceed to
argue logically from it. The result is confusing to the
average person, for, the steps of the reasoning being
logical, it seems as if the argument is sound, the fact
of the unwarranted premise being overlooked. The
person using this form of sophistry proceeds on Aaron
Burr's theory of truth being "that which is boldly
asserted and plausibly maintained.'^

Bulwer makes one of his characters mention a par-
ticularly atrocious form of this fallacy (although an
amusing one) in the following words : "Whenever you
are about to utter something astonishingly false, always
begin with: ^It is an acknowledged fact,' etc. Sir
Eobert Filmer was a master of this manner of writing.
Thus with what a solemn face that great man attempted
to cheat. He would say: 'It is a truth undeniable

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 197

that there cannot be any multitude of men whatsoever,
either great or small, etc., but that in the same multi-
tude there is one man among them that in nature hath
a right to he King of all the rest — as being the next
heir of Adam!*^*

Look carefully for the major premise of propositions
advanced in argument, spoken or written. Be sure that
the person making the proposition is not "begging the
question^^ by the unwarranted assumption of the prem-
ise.

General Eule of Inference.

Hyslop says concerning valid inferences and fallacious
ones: ^We cannot infer anything we please from any
premises we please. We must conform to certain defi-
nite rules or principles. Any violation of them will be
a fallacy. There are two simple rules which should not
be violated: (1) The subject-matter in the conclusion
should be of the same general hind as in the premises;
(2) the facts constituting the premises must be accepted
and must not be fictitious." A close observance of these
rules will result in the detection and avoidance of the
principal forms of fallacious reasoning and sophistry.

Sophistical Arguments.

There are a number of tricky practices resorted to by
persons in argument, that are fallacious in intent and

198 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

result, which we do not consider here in detail as they
scarcely belong to the particular subject of this book.
A brief mention, however, may be permitted in the
interest of general information. Here are the principal
ones : —

(1) Arguing that a proposition is correct because
the opponent cannot prove the contrary. The fallacy
is seen when we realize that the statement, "The moon
is made of green cheese,^^ is not proved because we can-
not prove the contrary. No amount of failure to dis-
prove a proposition really proves it; and no amount of
failure to prove a proposition really disproves it. As a
general rule, the burden of proof rests upon the person
stating the proposition, and his opponent is not called
upon to disprove it or else have it considered proved.
The old cry of "You cannot prove that it is not so''
is based upon a fallacious conception.

(2) Abuse of the opponent, his party, or his cause.
This is no real argument or reasoning. It is akin to
proving a point by beating the opponent over the head.

(3) Arguing that an opponent does not live up to
his principles is no argument against the principles he
advocates. A man may advocate the principle of tem-
perance and yet drink to excess. This simply proves
that he preaches better than he practices ; but the truth
of the principle of temperance is not aifected in any

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 199

way thereby. The proof of this is that he may change
his practices ; and it cannot be held that the change of
his personal habits improves or changes the nature of
the principle.

(4) Argument of authority is not based on logic.
Authority is valuable when really worthy, and merely
as corroboration or adding weight; but it is not logical
argument. The reasons of the authority alone consti-
tute a real argument. The abuse of this form of argu-
ment is shown, in the above reference to "begging the
question/^ in the quotation from Bulwer.

(5) Appeal to prejudice or public opinion is not a
valid argument, for public opinion is frequently wrong
and prejudice is often unwarranted. And, at the best,
they "have nothing to do with the case^^ from the stand-
point of logic. The abuse of testimony and claimed
evidence is also worthy of examination, but we cannot
go into the subject here.

Fallacies of Prejudice.

But perhaps the most dangerous of all fallacies in
the search for truth on the part of the most of us are
those which arise from the following: —

(1) The tendency to reason from what we feel and
wish to be true, rather than from the actual facts of the
case, which causes us unconsciously to assume the men-

200 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

tal attitude of ^^if the facts agree with our likes and
pet theories, all is well; if they do not, so much the
worse for the facts/'

(2) The tendency in all of us to perceive only the
facts that agree with our theories and to ignore the
others. We find that for which we seek, and overlook
that which does not interest us. Our discoveries fol-
low our interest, and our interest follows our desires
and beliefs.

The intelligent man or woman realizes these tenden-
cies of human nature and endeavors to avoid them in
his or her own reasoning, but is keenly conscious of
them in the arguments and reasoning of others. A
failure to observe and guard one's self against these
tendencies results in bigotry, intolerance, narrowness,
and intellectual astigmatism.

CHAPTER XXIX.

The Will.

THE activities of the will comprise the third great
class of mental processes. Psychologists always
have differed greatly in their conception of just
what constitutes these activities. Even to-day it is diffi-
cult to obtain a dictionary definition of the will that
agrees with the best opinion on the subject. The dic-
tionaries adhere to the old classification and conception
which regarded the will as ^*^that faculty of the mind
or soul by which it chooses or decides.^' But with
the growth of the idea that the will acts according to the
strongest motive^ and that the motive is supplied by the
average struck between the desires of the moment, un-
der the supervision of the intellect, the conception of
will as the choosing and deciding faculty is passing from
favor. In the place of the older conception has come
the newer one which holds that the will is primarily
concerned with action.

It is difficult to place the will in the category of
mental processes. But it is generally agreed that it
abides in the very center of the mental being, and is
closely associated with what is called the ego, or self.

203 YOUB MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

The will seems to have at least three general phases,
viz.: (1) The phase of desire, (2) the phase of delib-
eration or choice, and (3) the phase of expression in
action. In order to understand the will, it is necessary
to consider each of these three phases of its activities.

(1). Desire.

The first phase of will, which is called ^^desire,^^ is in
itself somewhat complex. On its lower side it touches,
and, in fact, blends into, feeling and emotion. Its cen-
ter consists of a state of tension, akin to that of a coiled
spring or a cat crouching ready for a spring. On its
higher side it touches, penetrates, and blends into the
other phases of the will which we have mentioned.

Desire is defined as ^^a feeling, emotion, or excitement
of the mind directed toward the attainment, enjoyment,
or possession of some object from which pleasure, profit,
or gratification is expected.^^ Halleck gives us the fol-
lowing excellent conception of the moving spirit of
desire : ^'Desire has for its object something which will
bring pleasure or get rid of pain, immediate or remote,
for the individual or for some one in whom he is inter-
ested. Aversion, or a striving away from something, is
merely the negative aspect of desire/'

In Halleck^s statement, above quoted, we have the
explanation of the part played by the intellect in the ac-

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 203

tivities of will. The intellect is able to perceive the
relations between present action and future results, and
is able to point the way toward the suppression of some
desires in order that other and better ones may be mani-
fested. It also serves its purposes in regulating the
^^striking of the average'^ between conflicting desires.
Without the intervention of the intellect^ the temporary
desire of the moment would invariably be acted upon
without regard to future results or consequences to one's
self and others. It also serves to point out the course
of action calculated to give the most satisfactory expres-
sion of the desire.

While it is a fact that the action of will depends
almost entirely upon the motive force of desire, it is
likewise true that desire may be created, regulated, sup-
pressed, and even killed by the action of the will. The
will, by giving or refusing attention to a certain class
of desires, may either cause them to grow and wax
strong, or else die and fade away. It must be remem-
bered, however, that this use of the will itself springs
from another set of desires or feelings.

Desire is aroused by feelings or emotions rising from
the subconscious planes of the mind and seeking expres-
sion and manifestation. We have considered the nature
of the feelings and emotions in previous chapters, which
should be read in connection with the present one. It

20 i YOIJB MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

should be remembered that the feeling or emotional side
of desire arises from either inherited race memories
existing as instincts, or from the memory of the
past experiences of the individual. In some eases the
feeling first manifests in a vague unrest caused by
subconscious promptings and excitement. Then the
imagination pictures the object of the feeling, or certain
memory images connected with it, and the desire thus
manifests on the plane of consciousness.

The entrance of the desire feeling into consciousness
is accompanied by that peculiar tension which marks
the second phase of desire. This tension, when suffi-
ciently strong, passes into the third phase of desire, or
that in which desire blends into will action. Desire in
this stage makes a demand upon will for expression and
action. From mere feeling, and tension of feeling, it
becomes a call to action. But before expression and
action are given to it, the second phase of will must
manifest at least for a moment; this second phase is
that known as deliberation, or the weighing and bal-
ancing of desires.

( 2 ) . Deliberation.
The second phase of will, known as deliberation, is
more than the pu.rely intellectual process which the term
would indicate. The intellect plays an important part.

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 205

it is true, but there is also an almost instinctive and
automatic weighing and balancing of desires. There is
seldom only one desire presenting its claims upon the
will at any particular moment. It is true that occa-
sionally there arises an emotional desire of such dom-
inant power and strength that it crowds out every other
claimant at the bar of deliberation. But such instances
are rare, and as a rule there are a host of rival claim-
ants, each insisting upon its rights in the matter at
issue. In the man of weak or undeveloped and un-
trained intellect, the struggle is usually little more than
a brief combat between several desires, in which the
strongest at the moment wins. But with the develop-
ment of intellect new factors arise and new forces are
felt. Moreover, the more complex one's emotional na-
ture, and the greater the development of the higher
forms of feeling, the more intense is the struggle of
deliberation or the fight of the desires.

We see, in Halleck's definition, that desire has not
only the object of "bringing pleasure or getting rid of
pain'' for the individual, but that the additional element
of the welfare of "some one in whom he is interested"
is added, which element is often the deciding factor.
This element, of course, arises from the development
and cultivation of one's emotional nature. In the same
way we also see that it is not merely the immediate

206 YOUB MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

welfare of one's self or those in whom one is interested
that speaks before the bar, but also the more remote
welfare. This consideration of future welfare depends
upon the intellect and cultivated imagination under its
control. Moreover, the trained intellect is able to dis-
cover possible greater satisfaction in some course of
action other than in the one prompted by the clamoring
desire of the moment. This explains why the judg-
ment and action of an intelligent man, as a rule, are far
different from those of the unintelligent one; and also
why a man of culture tends toward different action from
that of the uncultured; and likewise, why the man of
broad sympathies and high ideals acts in a different way
from one of the opposite type. But the principle is ever
the same — the feelings manifest in desire, the greatest
ultimate satisfaction apparent at the moment is sought,
and the strongest set of desires wins the day.

Halleck's comment on this point is interesting. He
says: ^^Desire is not always proportional to the idea
of one's own selfish pleasure. Many persons, after form-
ing an idea of the vast amount of earthly distress,
desire to relieve it, and the desire goes out in action, as
the benevolent societies in every city testify. Here the
individual pleasure is none the less, but it is secondary,
coming from the pleasure of others. The desire of the
near often raises a stronger desire than the remote, A

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 207

child frequently prefers a thing immediately if it is
only one tenth as good as something he might have a
year hence. A student often desires more the leisure
of to-day than the success of future years. Though
admonished to study, he wastes his time and thus loses
incomparably greater future pleasure when he is tossed
to the rear in the struggle for existence.^^

The result of this weighing and balancing of the
desire is, or should be, decision and choice, which then
passes into action. But many persons seem unable to
^^make up their own mind/^ and require a push or urge
from without before they will act. Others decide, with-
out proper use of the intellect, upon what they call
"impulse,^^ but which is merely impatience. Some are
like the fabled donkey which starved to death when
placed at an equal distance between two equally at-
tractive haystacks and was unable to decide towards
which to move. Others follow the example of Jeppe, in
the comedy, who, when given a coin with which to buy
a piece of soap for his wife, stood on the corner delib-
erating whether to obey orders or to buy a drink with
the money. He wants the drink, but realizes that his
wife will beat him if he returns without the soap. "My
stomach says drink; my back says soap,^^ says Jeppe.
"But/^ finally he remarks, "is not a man^s stomach
more to him than his back? Yes, says I.^^

208 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

The final decision depends upon the striking a bal-
ance between the desires, — the weighing of desire for
and desire against, — desire for this and desire for some-
thing else. The strength of the several desires depends
upon nearness and present interest arising from atten-
tion, as applied to the feelings and emotions arising
from heredity, environment, experience, and education,
which constitute character ; and also upon the degree of
intellectual clearness and power in forming correct
judgments between the desires.

It must be remembered, however, that the intellect
appears not as an opponent of the principle of the satis-
faction of desire, but merely as an instrument of the
ego in determining which course of action will result
in the greatest ultimate satisfaction, direct or indirect,
present or future. For, at the last, every individual
acts so as to hring himself the greatest satisfaction,
immediate or future, direct or indirect, either personal
or through the welfare of others, as this may appear to
him at the particular moment of deliberation. We al-
ways act in the direction of that which will greater
^^content our spirit/^ This will be found to be the spirit
of all decisions, although the motive is often hidden and
difficult to find even by the individual himself, many of
the strongest motives having their origin in the subcon-
scious planes of mentality.

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 209

(3). Action.

The third and final phase of will is that known as
action — the act of volition by which the desire-idea is
expressed in physical or mental activity. The old con-
ception of the will held that the decisive phase of the
will was its characteristic and final phase, ignoring the
fact that the very essence or spirit of will is bound up
with action. Even those familiar with the newer con-
ception frequently assume that the act of decision is
the final phase of will, ignoring the fact that we fre-
quently decide to do a thing and yet may never carry
out the intention and decision. The act of willing is
not complete unless action is expressed. There must be
the manifestation of the motor element or phase of will,
else the will process is incomplete.

A weakness of this last phase of will affects the entire
will and renders its processes ineffective. The world is
filled with persons who are able to decide what is best
to do, and what should be done, but who never actually
act upon the decision. The few persons who promptly
follow up the decision with vigorous action are those
who accomplish the world^s work. Without the full
manifestation of this third phase of will the other two
phases are useless.

Types of Will.
So far we have considered merely the highest type

210 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

of will — that which is accompanied by conscious delib-
eration, in which the intellect takes an active part. In
this process, not only do the conflicting feelings push
themselves forward with opposing claims for recogni-
tion, but the intellect is active in examining the case
and offering valuable testimony as to the comparative
merits of the various claimants and the effect of certain
courses of action upon the individual. There are, how-
ever, several lower forms of will manifestation which we
should briefly consider in passing.

Reflex Action. — The will is moved to action by the
reflex activities of the nervous system which have been
mentioned in the earlier chapters of this book. In this
general type we find unconscious reflex action, such as
that manifested when a sleeper is touched and moves
away, or when the frog's leg twitches when the nerve
end is excited. We also find conscious reflex action,
such as that manifested by the winking of the eye, or
the performance of habitual physical motion, such as the
movement in walking, operating the sewing machine or
typewriter, playing the piano, etc.

Impulsive Action. — The will is often moved to action
by a dim idea or faint perception of purpose or impulse.
The action is almost instinctive, although there is a
vague perception of purpose. For instance, we feel an
impulse to turn toward the source of a strange sound or

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 311

sight, or other source of interest or curiosity. Or we
may feel an impulse arising from the subconscious
plane of our mind, causing a dimly-conscious idea of
movement or action to relieve the tension. For instance,
one may feel a desire to exercise, or to seek fresh air or
green fields, although he had not been thinking of these
things at the time. These impulses arise from a sub-
conscious feeling of fatigue or desire for change, which,
added to a fleeting idea, produces the impulse. Unless
an impulse is inhibited by the will activities inspired
by other desires, habits, ideas, or ideals, we act upon
it in precisely the same way that a young child or ani-
mal does. Hoffding says of this type of action : ^^The
psychological condition of the impulse is, that with the
momentary feeling and sensation should be combined a
more or less clear idea of something which may aug-
ment the pleasure or diminish the pain of the moment.'^
Instinctive Action, — The will is frequently moved to
action by an instinctive stimulus. This form of will ac-
tivity closely resembles the last mentioned form, and
often it is impossible to distinguish between the two.
The activities of the bee in building its comb and storing
its honey, the work of the silkworm and caterpillar in
building their resting places, are examples of this form
of action. Indeed, even the building of the nest of the
bird mav be so classed. In these cases there is an intel-

212 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

ligent action toward a definite end, but the animal is
unconscious of that end. The experiences of the remote
ancestors of these creatures recorded their impressions
upon the subconscious mind of the species, and they are
transmitted in some way to all of that species. The
nervous system of every living thing is a record cylinder
of the experiences of its early ancestors, and these cyl-
inders tend to reproduce these impressions upon appro-
priate occasions. In preceding chapters we have shown
that even man is under the influence of instinct to a
greater extent than he imagines himself to be.

CHAPTER XXX.

Will-Training.

IT is of the utmost importance that the individual
develop, cultivate, and train his will so as to
bring it under the influence of the higher part of
his mental and moral being. While the will is used
most effectively in developing and training the intel-
lect and building character, it itself must be trained
by itself to habitually come under the guidance of the
intellect and under the influence of that which we call
character.

The influence of the trained will upon the several
mental faculties is most marked. There are no facul-
ties which may not be cultivated by the will. The first
and great task of the will in this direction is the control
and direction of the attention. The will determines the
kind of interest that shall prevail at the moment, and
the kind of interest largely determines the character of
the man, his tastes, his feelings, his thoughts, his acts.
Gordy says: "Cooperating with a pre-existing influ-
ence, the will can make a weaker one prevail over a
stronger. * * * It determines which of pre-existing
influences shall have control over the mind.^^

214 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

Moreover, concentrated and continued attention de-
pends entirely upon the exercise of the will. As Gordji
says : "If the will relaxes its hold upon the activities
of the mind, the attention is liable to be carried away
by any one of the thousands of ideas that the laws oi
association are constantly bringing into our minds."

Even in the matter of mental images the will asserts
its sway, and the imagination may be trained to be the
obedient servant of the developed will. Regarding the
influence of the will upon character, Davidson says:
"It is not enough for a man to understand correctly and
love duly the conditions of moral life in his own time;
he must, still further, be willing and able to fulfill these
conditions. And he certainly cannot do this unless his
will is trained to perfect freedom, so that it responds,
with the utmost readiness, to the suggestions of his
discriminating intelligence and the movements of his
chastened affections." Halleck says: "We gradually
make our characters by separate acts of will, just as a
blacksmith by repeated blows beats out a horseshoe or an
anchor from a shapeless mass of iron. A finished an-
chor or horseshoe was never the product of a single

blow."

Training the Will.

Perhaps the best way to train the will is to use it
intelligently, and with a purpose. The training of any

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 315

faculty of the mind is at the same time a training of
the will. The attention being so closely allied to the
will, it follows that a careful training of attention will
result in a strengthening of the will. The training of
the emotional side of one's nature also brings results
in the strengthening of the will.

Halleck gives his students excellent advice regarding
the training of the will. It would be hard to find any-
thing better along these lines than the following from
his pen: ^^Nothing schools the will, and renders it
ready for effort in this complex world, better than
accustoming it to face disagreeable things. Professor
James advises all to do something occasionally for no
other reason than that they would rather not do it, if it
is nothing more than giving up a seat in a street car*
He likens such effort to the insurance that a man pays
on his house. He has something that he can fall back
on in time of trouble. A will schooled in this way is
always ready to respond, no matter how great the emer-
gency. While another would be crying over spilled
milk, the possessor of such a will has already found
another cow. * * -*^ The only way to secure such a will
is to practice dcing disagreeable things. There are
daily opportunities. * * * A man who had declared his
aversion to what he deemed the dry facts of political
economy was one day found knitting his brow over a

216 YOVB MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

eliapter of John Stuart Mill. When a friend expressed
surprise, the man replied: ^I am playing the school-
master with myself. I am reading this because I dislike
it.^ Such a man has the elements of success in him.
* * * On the other hand, the one who habitually avoids
disagreeable action is training his will to be of no use
to him at a time when supreme effort is demanded.
Such a will can never elbow its way to the front in
life.^^

Habits.

Habits are the beaten track over which the will trav-
els. The beaten path of habit is the line of least resist-
ance to the will. One who would train his will must
needs pay attention to providing it with the proper
mental paths over which to travel. The rule for the
creation of habits is simply this : Travel over the men-
tal path as often as possible. The rule for breaking
undesirable habits is this : Cultivate the opposite hahit.
In these two rules is expressed the gist of what has been
written on the subject.

Professor Vf illiam James has left to the world some
invaluable advice regarding the cultivation of right
habits. He bases his rules upon those of Professor
Bain, elaborates these, and adds some equally good ones.
We herewith quote freely from both James and Bain

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT, 217

on this subject; it is the best ever written regarding
habit building.

I. ^^In the acquisition of a new habit, or the leaving
off of an old one, launch yourself with as strong and
decided an initiative as possible. This will give your
new beginning such a momentum that the temptation
to break down will not occur as soon as it otherwise
might; and every day during which a breakdown is
postponed adds to the chances of it not occurring at
all.^^ — James.

II. ^^Never suffer an exception to occur till the new
habit is securely rooted in your life. Every lapse is like
the letting fall of a ball of string which one is carefully
winding up — a single slip undoes more than a great
many turns will wind again.^' — James. "It is neces-
sary, above all things, in such a situation, never to lose
a battle. Every gain on the wrong side undoes the
effect of many conquests on the right. The essential
precaution is so to regulate the two opposing powers
that the one may have a series of uninterrupted suc-
cesses, until repetition has fortified it to such a degree
as to enable it to cope with the opposition, under any
circumstances.^^ — Bain.

III. "Seize the very first possible opportunity to act
on every resolution you make, and on every emotional
prompting you may experience in the direction of the

218 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

habits you aspire to gain. It is not in the moment of
their forming, but in the moment of their producing
motor effects^ that resolves and aspirations communicate
their new ^'set' to the brain/' — James, ^^The actual
presence of the practical opportunity alone furnishes
the fulcrum upon which the lever can rest, by which
the moral will may multiply its strength and raise itself
aloft. He who has no solid ground to press against will
never get beyond the stage of empty gesture making/'
— Bain,

IV. ^^Keep the faculty alive in you by a little gratu-
itous exercise every day. That is, be systematically
ascetic or heroic in little, unnecessary points; do every
day something for no other reason than that you would
rather not do it, so that when the hour of dire need
draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved and untrained
to stand the test. * * * The man who has daily inured
himself to habits of concentrated attention, energetic
volition, and self-denial in unnecessary things Avill stand
like a tower when everything rocks around him, and
when his softer fellow mortals are winnowed like chaff
in the blast/' — James.

CHAPTEE XXXI.

Will-Tonic-

IN" addition to the general rules for developing and
training the will given in the preceding chapter,
we ask you to tone up and strengthen the will by
the inspiration to be derived from the words of some of
the world's great thinkers and doers. In these words
there is such a vital statement of the recognition, real-
ization, and manifestation of that something within,
which we call ^Vill,'' that it is a dull soul, indeed, which
is not inspired by the contagion of the idea. These
expressions are the milestones on the Path of Attain-
ment, placed by those who have preceded us on the
journey. We submit these quotations without com-
ment ; they speak for themselves.

Words of the Wise.

'They can who think they can. Character is a per-
fectly educated will.'^

''N"othing can resist the will of a man who knows
what is true and wills what is good.^^

"In all difficulties advance and will, for within vou

220 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

is a power, a living force, which the more you trust and
learn to use will annihilate the opposition of matter/^

^^The star of the unconquered will,
It rises in my breast,
Serene and resolute and still.
And calm and self-possessed.

^^So nigh is grandeur to our dust.

So near is God to man.
When duty whispers low, ^Thou must V
The youth replies, ^I can !' '^

^'^The longer I live, the more certain I am that the
great dijfference between men, between the feeble and
the powerful, the great and the insignificant, is en-
ergy,— invincible determination, — a purpose once fixed,
and then death or victory. That quality will do any-
thing that can be done in this world, and no talents,
no circumstances, no opportunities will make a two-
legged creature a man without it.^' — Buxton.

"The human will, that force unseen,
The offspring of a deathless soul,
Can hew a way to any goal.
Though walls of granite intervene.

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 331

U

a

You will be what you will to be;
Let failure find its false content
In that poor word environment.

But spirit scorns it and is free.

It masters time, it conquers space,
It cows that boastful trickster, chance.
And bids the tyrant circumstance

Uncrown and fill a servant's place/'

^^Eesolve is what makes a man manifest; not puny
resolve, not crude determinations, not errant purpose,
but that strong and indefatigable will which treads
down difficulties and danger as a boy treads down the
heaving frost lands of winter, which kindles his eye and
brain with a proud pulse beat toward the unattainable.
Will makes men giants/' — Donald G, Mitchell,

"There is no chance, no destiny, no fate
Can circumvent, or hinder, or control
The firm resolve of a determined soul.
Gifts count for nothing, will alone is great;
All things give way before it soon or late.
What obstacle can stay the mighty force
Of the sea-seeking river in its course,
Or cause the ascending orb of day to wait.'^
Each well-born soul must win what it deserves.

S23 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

Let the fools prate of luck. The fortunate
Is he whose earnest purpose never swerves^
Whose slightest action, or inaction.
Serves the one great aim. Why, even death itself
Stands still and waits an hour sometimes
For such a will.'^

— Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

"I have brought myself by long meditation to the
conviction that a human being with a settled purpose
must accomplish it, and that nothing can resist a will
which will stake even existence upon its fulfillment.''
— Lord Beaconsfield.

"A passionate desire and an unwearied will can per-
form impossibilities, or what may seem to be such to the
cold and feeble.'' — Sir John Simpson.

"It is wonderful how even the casualties of life seem
to bow to a spirit that will not bow to them, and yield
to subserve a design which they may, in their first
apparent tendency, threaten to frustrate. When a firm,
decisive spirit is recognized, it is curious to see how the
space clears around a man and leaves him room and
freedom/' — John Foster.

"The great thing about General Grant is cool per-
sistency of purpose. He is not easily excited, and he
has got the grip of a bulldog. When he once gets his

YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT. 223

teeth in, nothing can shake him off." — Abraham Lin-
coln.

"I am bigger than anything that can happen to me.
All these things are outside my dooi% and Fve got the
hey. * * * Man was meant to be, and ought to be,
stronger and more than anything that can happen to
him. Circumstances, Tate,^ ^Luck,^ are all outside;
and if he cannot change them, he can always heat
them." — Charles F. Lummis. ;

^^The truest wisdom is a resolute determination."

"Impossible is a word found only in the dictionary
of fools."

"Circumstances ! I mahe circumstances !" — Napoleon.

"He who fails only half wills." — Suwarrow.

"That which the easiest becomes a habit in us is the
will. Learn, then, to will strongly and decisively; thus
fix your floating life, and leave it no longer to be car-
ried hither and thither, like a withered leaf, by every
wind that blows."

"Man owes his growth chiefly to that active striving
of the will, — that encounter which we call effort, — and
it is astonishing to find how often results apparently
impracticable are thus made possible. * * * It is will —
force of purpose — ^that enables a man to do or be what-
ever he sets his mind upon being or doing."

"A strong, defiant purpose is many-handed and lays

224 YOUR MIND AND HOW TO USE IT.

hold of whatever is near that can serve it; it has a
magnetic purpose that draws to itself whatever is kin-
dred. * * * Let it be your first study to teach the
world that you are not wood and straw; that there is
some iron in you/' — Munger,

"If s dogged as does it/' — Yorhshire Proverb.

"One talent with a will behind it will accomplish
more than ten without it^ as a thimbleful of powder in
a rifle^ the bore of whose barrel will give it direction,
will do greater execution than a carload burned in the
open air/' — 0. S, Mar den.

"Will may not endow man with talents or capacities ;
but it does one very important matter — it enables him
to make the best, the very best, of his powers/' —
Fothergill.

"Tender-handed stroke a nettle,
And it stings you for your pains.
Grasp it like a man of mettle,
x\nd it soft as down remains/'

"Don't flinch; don't foul; but hit the line hard/' —
Roosevelt.

"The more difficulties one has to encounter, within
and without, the more significant and the higher in
inspiration his life will be/'

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